KESQ.com News Services
CHATSWORTH - A plaque memorializing the 25 Metrolink commuters killed and scores injured a year ago today in a head-on collision with a freight train was unveiled at Stoney Point Park, but promised safety measures have yet to be implemented.
A ceremony was held at Chatsworth Hills Academy Friday to remember those aboard
Metrolink train 111, which crashed near the campus in the 21500 block of Rinaldi Street that firefighters used for a triage center.
The engineer was sending a text message about 4:20 p.m. when the commuter train ran a light and hit the freight train at about 40 mph. The crash was the deadliest in Metrolink history and has led to efforts to install an automated collision-avoidance system.
However, KCAL9 reported tonight that the promised safety measures, which include a second set of eyes in engines, shortening grueling split shifts for engineers over 16 hours, cameras inside engines and automatic stop systems have yet to be implemented a year after the crash.
About 70 percent of Metrolink trains still have just one engineer, according to KCAL.
County officials told the TV station that federal rules and money are among the reasons the changes have yet to be made.
In Simi Valley, the accident was remembered in a separate 4 p.m. ceremony at the Metrolink station there.
A memorial oak tree was planted on the campus to pay tribute to the rescue crews who freed the trapped passengers and treated the 40 critically injured people. A plaque on a bench was unveiled.
"Thank you to all who assisted during the Metrolink crash, and to responders everywhere who show us the meaning of bravery, compassion and community. September 11, 2009," the inscription says.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was among those who spoke at yesterday's ceremony.
"When we come together as we did here, when we unite together as we did here, we reaffirm our humanity," he said. "We reaffirm who we are."
Another memorial to the victims was unveiled at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday. The bronze plaque, titled "Unfinished Journeys," is engraved with railroad tracks approaching a tree-lined bend.
