The Los Angeles-bound train slammed into a truck parked on the tracks about 80 miles northwest of LA
By Jonathan Lloyd
At least 30 people were injured when three cars of a Los Angeles-bound Metrolink train derailed after a fiery collision with a truck Tuesday morning between Oxnard and Camarillo.The vehicle was on the Ventura County Line tracks at the time of the collision, just before 6 a.m., according to Metrolink. Several cars were on their sides near 5th Street and Rice Avenue, and the vehicle, described as a utility truck, was on fire after the crash about 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Details regarding the conditions of the injured victims or the location of the truck driver were not immediately available. Fire-rescue personnel set up a color-coded triage area with green, yellow and red tarps at the site. The tarps indicate the severity of the victim's injuries, with red being the most serious and green indicating minor injuries.Ventura County Line 768 train shared by Metrolink and Amtrak is canceled for Tuesday due to the wreck. Ventura County Line 104 to Los Angeles will travel as far as Oxnard. Metrolink is asking travelers to consider alternate transportation and contacting bus agencies for assistance.
The crash follows two major crashes involving Metrolink trains in the past 10 years. In January 2005, a truck abandoned on a rail line near Glendale caused a Metrolink train to derail and strike other trains on either side of the track, killing 11.
In 2008, a freight train and Metrolink train collided head-on in Chatsworth, killing 25. Authorities determined the Metrolink train went through a red signal before entering the single-track section.
There are 228,000 street crossings in the country, about 140,000 of them on publicly owned roads, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. About 53 percent of the public ones are equipped with active warning devices.
Collisions at the crossings have dropped by 85 percent from a high of more than 13,500 in 1978 to just over 2,000 in 2011, according to the administration. It attributes the dramatic decrease to engineering improvements, better enforcement of traffic safety laws and education of motorists. The administration estimates that 94 percent of collisions and 87 percent of fatalities are the result of risky behavior by drivers or poor judgment.
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