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It was January 26th, 2005 when Juan Alvarez parked his gasoline-drenched Jeep Cherokee on train tracks in Glendale. He said it was an attempt to commit suicide before he changed his mind the last minute. He jumped out of the way before "a fast-moving Metrolink train struck the SUV, derailed and struck a parked Union Pacific locomotive before colliding with another Metrolink train traveling in the other direction," as the Associated Press describes. 11 people died and 180 were injured. Alverez was convicted of murder last year.
Today, attorneys for the crash victims announced that the commuter line will pay about $30 million to settle the majority, about 90 percent, of cases. Among those were nine wrongful death claims and 15 serious injury cases. If the rest of the cases are not settled, a court date is set for January 4th.
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Huh?? Why is Metrolink responsible for Juan Alvarez's actions? I guess we'll never have decent transportation in this city...
Because you know Metrolink should have anti-SUV laser canons installed on them, anything less would be criminal negligence.
I was thinking the same thing - I'd understand if it was an Metrolink employee who was not paying attention and did something wrong - running into an SUV that wasn't supposed to be there doesn't seem like something that could have been prevented on the Metrolink side.
Maybe I shouldn't even comment since this is just a guess, but I remember at the time there was lots of talk about the push/pull way that Metrolink operated...which is to say, to save money, the locomotive was at times in the front of the train and at times in the back of the train, so that the train did not have to turn around, just push in one direction and pull in the other.
If the locomotive had been in the front of the train, it would have sliced through that waste-of-life's car and other than a fire, nothing much would have happened.
Since the locomotive was at the back, the front of the train was a light passenger car that did not have the density to plow through the SUV.