by James Buchanan

Last September, Robert Sanchez failed to acknowledge three railway signals and collided head on with another train killing 24 people. It later became known that Sanchez had been exchanging text messages with a teenage boy. It was also revealed that Sanchez was Gay. Details of the NTSB investigation are finally being released.

An article on Bloomberg.com reports “Crew members on both the Metrolink passenger train and the Union Pacific Corp. freight locomotive that collided in Los Angeles last year were sending text messages before the accident that killed 25 people, an inquiry showed. The Union Pacific crew member, a conductor, also tested positive for marijuana after the Sept. 12 accident, the deadliest U.S. passenger train crash since 1993, according to evidence presented today at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing in Washington.”

Well, who could expect train engineers to be sober or paying attention to the tracks ahead? Considering the thousands of tons of locomotive under their control, maybe there should be drug tests and common sense rules. For example, how about having the engineer looking out the windshield at the tracks ahead at all times. That’s the way most of us drive our cars. Admittedly train tracks are supposed to be clear of obstructions, but sometimes kids crawl over fences or hobos lie down on the tracks or someone parks a truck on the tracks and it’s then an engineer should be blowing the whistle and hitting the emergency brake.

The Bloomberg article notes “The NTSB released documents today, including the Metrolink engineer’s text-message log and crew toxicology results, from a multi-agency investigation on the accident. The crash has spurred a federal ban on mobile-phone use by train operators and a new law requiring automatic braking systems on trains. A Los Angeles rail official today called for cameras in train cabs… The accident caused $10.6 million in damages, according to the NTSB. The transportation board previously recommended that federal rail-safety regulators require voice recorders in trains and consider mandating the use of cameras to provide data… The board said the Metrolink engineer, Robert Sanchez, didn’t stop at a signal and sent a message on his mobile phone as late as 22 seconds before his train collided with the freight carrier.”

Earlier reports said that Sanchez had sent a message a minute before the crash. It takes some time to read text messages, and it seems fairly obvious Sanchez had his head down reading messages instead of keeping his eyes open for signals.

The article continues “ ‘All recorded data and physical evidence in this collision are consistent with the Metrolink train failing to stop at the red signal,’ Wayne Workman, the NTSB investigator in charge of the accident investigation, said today. The signal, which some people near the accident scene had said wasn’t working, had a red display that Sanchez ignored, Workman said. Sanchez, who died in the crash, had also allowed unauthorized people in his locomotive the week of the accident and had plans to do so again the evening of the crash, which occurred at 4:22 p.m. local time… Sanchez sent 21 text messages, received 22 and made four outgoing phone calls during his time on-duty the day of the crash, according to NTSB documents. He had been warned twice by supervisors about using a mobile phone while on the job, according to evidence presented in the hearing.”

I expect quota-hire minorities to foul up and kill people through sheer incompetence or negligence, but I would never have thought of a Gay Latino train operator/predator causing a train wreck as he was text-messaging teenage boys.

And I’m sure dozens of better-qualified White engineers were told “We’re sorry we don’t have a train engineer position for you” as they gave that job to the Gay Latino.