A Metrolink commuter train believed to be carrying up to 350 people collided with a Union Pacific freight train Friday, killing at least 15 people and injuring about 70, dpa reported.
Firefighters extinguished a blaze under part of the wreckage and were working two hours after the wreck to free people from a commuter car left mangled, toppled on its side with the train's engine shoved back inside it. Two other cars in the Metrolink train remained upright. One of the deceased is believed to be the Metrolink train's engineer.
Authorities expect the death toll to rise as firefighters work their way to the part of the train that suffered the greatest impact.
The freight train's engine was also on its side, with the rest of the train splayed out like an accordion behind it.
Firefighters treated the injured at three triage areas near the wreck, and helicopters were used for medical evacuation flights.
A male passenger told KNBC-TV he boarded the train in suburban Burbank and was talking with a fellow passenger when the crash occurred.
"Within an instant I was in my friend's lap. It was so quick. It was devastating," he said. The man was visibly injured, but able to walk with the aid of firefighters. The man said he was involved in a devastating 2005 Metrolink crash in Glendale and was talking about it with the other passenger when Friday's crash occurred.
Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell couldn't confirm how many people were on the train, but said that in rush hours there would usually be about 350 people on board.
"It is a very, very sad situation. We honestly don't know what happened. Obviously two trains are not supposed to be at the same place at the same time," she said. "The conductor was not killed. He may have been involved in ensuring passengers getting off the train. There are still passengers inside."
The locomotive was at the front, pulling the train, she said. "Apparently the locomotive was shoved into the passenger train."
Firefighters pulled passengers out a rear door and down a ladder from the toppled commuter car, which had been separated from the rest of the train. Dazed and injured passengers sat on the ground or milled about.
One of the injured passengers, Albert Cox, 53, said he boarded the train in Burbank on his way home to Simi Valley. He sat facing backward in the last of the three cars, a decision he said proved fortuitous.
Cox said he watched the collision as it happened. Sitting in the last car as the train rounded a steep turn in the tracks, Cox said, he looked out the window on the left side of the train, confused at first by what he saw.
A regular Metrolink rider, Cox said that at first he thought the freight train was in a side track area but then he realized that both trains were on the same track on the curve. "My first thought was 'I'm not seeing this,'"he said. "And then I knew the train was coming right toward us," he said.
On impact, Cox was thrown over his seat, landing on a table between two seats and breaking it. "The table won," he said.
Another injured passenger, Willie Castro, 67, of Simi Valley, said he was in the last Metrolink car, sitting by a window and talking to passengers about work and about the coming weekend when the crash occurred.
"I was riding, sitting down, minding my own business, when all of a sudden - boom, people go flying all over the place," he said. "Everyone started screaming. You could hear that everyone was in pain."
The Glendale crash on Jan. 26, 2005, was the worst disaster in Metrolink's history, caused when a man parked a gasoline-soaked SUV on railroad tracks. A Metrolink train struck the SUV and derailed, striking another Metrolink train, killing 11 people and injuring about 180 others. Juan Alvarez was convicted this year of murder for causing the crash.