Train Crashes

Every five minutes, sometimes less, there are helicopters overhead.  There's no point in leaving the house because virtually anywhere we would go would be along the route from Chatsworth to one of the two local trauma centers and who wants to get in the way of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars.

ABC 7 hasn't veered away from the train wreck.  I wish I could change the channel, but I can't.

If you're from the Valley, this story hits really close to home.  The Metrolink runs from Ventura, through the San Fernando Valley and then into Burbank and Glendale before it hits Downtown.  I've taken it before.  My brother rode it every day until very recently and my father also took it frequently.  

According to news reports, there were 222 people on the train when it crashed.  That's after it stopped at the last Valley station, so let's estimate that altogether, there were over 400, maybe even over 500, people on the train-- everyone from salarymen to students.  Since its inception, and particularly since the recent hike in gas prices, the Metrolink has become crucial for people trying to get somewhere between the Valley and Downtown.

What struck me as strange throughout the evening, was that the reporters seemed sort of astounded by the concept of people riding trains.  One asked, "Are there seatbelts?"  If anyone has ever seen a seatbelt on a train, let me know because I certainly haven't seen them in L.A. or any of the other cities where I've hit the rails.  Plus, the Metrolink is a commuter train, meaning that it's standing room only at the busiest times of the day. 

Then there was some tangent about homeowners Chatsworth disliking the railroads because, to paraphrase the report, the noise and traffic of trains really don't gel with "a nice neighborhood like this."  So now, we have this horrible accident that resulted in a still-unknown number of deaths and severe injuries, where people are still trapped inside the cars, and people are trying to bring the homeowner groups-- organizations that are often cited in conversations with locals for contributing to the  abysmal state of public transportation in the Valley-- to politicize the situation.  That's sort of tasteless.