The 20 second thing doesn't get him off the hook. It could likely mean that he was not actually texting at the time but perhaps was reading the response. Ugh. Such a tragedy.

ka... that's how the train system works. Professionals are hired to operate trains and pay attention while operating them to ensure that trains sharing the track do not hit each other. This worked fine on the Ventura County Line for 16 years until one so called professional clearly decided that the bare minimum requirement of his job (paying attention) was less important than his text messaging. PAYING ATTENTION AND DRIVING THE TRAIN CARRYING HUNDREDS OF PASSENGERS IS HIS GODDAMN JOB. It's clear as day now that this accident would have been avoided if this man was DOING HIS GODDAMN JOB. How many millions/billions do you think we should spend so that professional train operators don't have to be burdened by the stress of doing their job.

Certainly Metrolink and Veolia are not of the hook, they still hired this incompetent engineer and allowed cell phone use while operating a train, but it has nothing to do with "two trains heading toward each other on the same track" or "lack of PTC".