p.m., westbound Ventura County Line Metrolink train 111, which had just left the Chatsworth Station and
was headed toward Moorpark, collided head-on with an eastbound Union Pacific Railroad (UP) freight train.
The lead Metrolink passenger car (there were a total of three passenger cars) and locomotive derailed, as
well as UP's two locomotives and 10 of its 17
cars. Twenty-five people on board Metrolink
train 111 died in the crash, including the
engineer, and 135 others were injured, making
the collision the deadliest in Metrolink's and
the nation's history. National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) investigators later
discovered that the collision was caused by
the Connex/Veolia engineer texting while
operating the train and subsequently running a
red signal. Metrolink contracted with Connex/
Veolia to operate its trains.
safety improvements
center was set up at Chatsworth High School
to assist injured passengers who were not
transported to hospitals. On Sept. 12 and 13, Metrolink employees worked with the Red Cross, Los Angeles
Police and Fire departments and other representatives from the City of Los Angeles to provide assistance
and information to families and friends seeking information about passengers who were on board train 111
at the time of the collision. Metrolink employees set up and staffed a phone bank to answer incoming phone
calls, as well as distributed food to the families and friends of injured passengers. Staff also distributed free
cell phones donated by the local Best Buy so people at the family assistance center could contact loved
ones.
employees before they began their duties at the family assistance center. "I took them behind the closet in
the school gym, and I closed the door and said, `We are not just Metrolink employees today. We are people
here to comfort and sit and just be someone to lean on.'"
assistance center, recalled how Metrolink employees banded together. "Everybody from all over this agency
kicked in to do whatever they could to help, whether it was answering phones, returning items to the victims'
families or doing office work in the place of employees who were unable to do their normal duties because
they were at the family assistance center with the victims' families."
and Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitchell Englander arrive at the site of the
Chatsworth collision