A Metrolink train on the system's Ventura County Line hit a truck abandoned at a road-rail grade crossing near Oxnard, Calif., Tuesday morning, Feb. 24, 2015, resulting in numerous injuries, among them four passengers and the train's engineer in critical condition.
The train, bound for Los Angeles Union Station, hit the truck at about 5:40 a.m. Pacific Time, with the truck exploding into flames. Three Metrolink cars derailed and fell over; two more derailed but remained upright at the scene, about 65 miies northwest of Los Angeles.
The truck driver, 54-year-old Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, fled the scene of the incident, and was found later about two miles away. He was later taken into custody on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, police said. Some media reported the truck, a Ford F-150 pickup with a trailer attached, was stuck on the tracks.
Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson on Tuesday told local media, "All indications are that, at the point of the incident, everything at the crossing, including the gate arms and emergency notifications and bells, were working properly."
Late Tuesday, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the truck appeared to have been driven along the tracks prior to the collision. "It was not stuck, it was not bottomed out on the track or something like that," Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board member, told reporters.
The incident reminded many of the Metrolink train collision with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, Calif., on Sept. 12, 2008, also occurring on the Ventura County Line, attributed to negligence on the part of the Metrolink engineer.
The Chatsworth collision killed 25 and injured 135, and was seen by many as a catalyst for Congress to pass legislation mandating Positive Train Control (PTC) on much of the nation's rail network. Metrolink heralded implementation of PTC on three of its routes in February 2014.