California Metrolink train collides with truck, 30 injured
| Oxnard, Calif.
Three cars of a Southern California Metrolink commuter train have derailed and tumbled onto their sides after a collision with a truck on tracks in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles.
Oxnard police Sgt. Denise Shadinger says the crash reported at 5:44 a.m. Tuesday caused a number of injuries. reports at least 30 injured.聽
Shadinger says the truck became fully engulfed in flames.
A KABC-TV news helicopter is showing firefighters treating numerous people at the scene.
Metrolink's website says the train was on a run from Ventura County to Los Angeles.
On Feb. 10, a Metrolink train derailed聽a few hundred feet from聽Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.聽No injuries were reported in that incident and about 100 passengers were evacuated from the train.
In 2005, a Metrolink train crash left 11 dead and 180 people injured. The Los Angeles Daily News recently reported:
Since then, the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, which governs Metrolink, has shelled out more than $500 million to buttress safety along 512 miles of track stretching from Ventura to San Bernardino to northern San Diego counties. Upgrades include 鈥渟ealed鈥� grade crossings, safer rail cars and locomotives, automatic train stops and the nation鈥檚 first onboard rail video cameras. They also include the nation鈥檚 first so-called Positive Train Control, a high-tech system to prevent train crashes in lieu of human error or natural disaster, expected to fully roll out by spring.
鈥淣obody ever wants to experience anything like it ever again,鈥� said Jeff Lustgarten, spokesman for Metrolink, of the Glendale and Chatsworth train crashes. 鈥�(They) shook the agency to its core. We are a safety-first agency.
鈥淢etrolink has come a long way in 10 years: We can safely say we now have the safest commuter rail system in the country.鈥�
