Full Coverage: Metrolink derailment

After a Metrolink commuter train slammed into a pickup truck near Oxnard this year, injuring 27 people and killing the engineer, railroad officials were quick to claim that new crash-resistant passenger coaches appeared to save lives and reduce injuries.

Two people who were seriously injured in last month’s Metrolink train crash near Oxnard filed lawsuits Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court.

One week after being gravely injured in a collision between a Metrolink train and a pickup truck in Oxnard, the train’s engineer has died.

When a Metrolink train slammed into an SUV on railroad tracks in Glendale a decade ago, the horrific chain reaction wreck prompted a major campaign to improve the safety and security of Southern California grade crossings.

Prosecutors declined to file charges Thursday against the driver of a pickup truck that was hit by a Metrolink train in Oxnard this week, opting to wait for the completion of the investigation.

Federal investigators are examining whether the intersection near Tuesday’s Metrolink crash in Oxnard was “adequately illuminated� in the early-morning darkness, officials said Wednesday.

It was dark early Tuesday morning when Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez drove his truck along a narrow road that parallels train tracks in the farmlands of Oxnard.

A proposed $30-million to $35-million grade separation project that would have prevented Tuesday’s crash of a Metrolink commuter train in Oxnard has been delayed for years by a lack of money, officials said Wednesday.

The train operator severely injured in Tuesday’s Metrolink crash is clinging to life after his heart stopped twice on Wednesday.

Federal officials said Wednesday that they have obtained video taken inside a Metrolink commuter train that captures the moments before and after it hit a truck early Tuesday and derailed in an explosive crash.

The wife of the driver who was arrested after his truck was hit by a Metrolink train, which then derailed, defended her husband and said the couple was grieving over the recent death of their daughter.

Metrolink’s investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in safety improvements after a series of deadly collisions probably reduced casualties in Tuesday’s Oxnard crash, but the accident also highlighted the limits of the ongoing campaign.

The truck involved in a Metrolink train derailment Tuesday morning in Oxnard that left dozens injured appears to have been traveling down the tracks just before the collision, an NTSB official said late Tuesday.

Keana Grey was heading to jury duty in Los Angeles before dawn Tuesday, sitting in the lower deck of the second Metrolink car from the front, when she felt the train shake.

Ted Maloney, 59, was driving to work in Ventura on 5th Street, about to make a left turn on Rice Avenue when he heard the Metrolink train’s horn just before it crashed into a pickup truck.

Keana Grey was in the front seat of the lower deck of the second car from the front when the Metrolink train shook.

In Tuesday’s crash of a Metrolink commuter train in Oxnard, the railroad’s new passenger cars, which represent the state of the art in safety design, performed well, officials say.

Tarlee Coleman, 53, woke up at 5:46 a.m. to a phone call from his older sister.

The Oxnard rail crossing that was the scene of Tuesday’s Metrolink derailment is the 23rd most hazardous in California, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Metrolink has seen two multi-fatality crashes in the last decade and has focused considerable attention on improving safety and public confidence.

An analysis of crash data suggests that Metrolink could significantly reduce accidents by targeting a few particularly dangerous crossings.

Metrolink debuts the positive train control safety system on three lines, and it hopes to fully equip its network by the end of 2014.

Spurred by two deadly crashes since 2005, Metrolink has now replaced almost all its fleet of aging rail cars with a state-of-the-art model designed to better protect passengers and crews during crashes.

Officials criticize a ‘safety system that existed only on paper,’ and say cellphone use and other rule violations observed in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash appear to be only the tip of the iceberg.