Story and photographs by Richard
Elgenson
RailNewsNetwork staff writer
On Tuesday
November 18 2003 I
received a phone
call from my contact at Metrolink.They
were going to be running an Operation Lifesaver “officer-on-a-train”
exercise
on the Metrolink Riverside line the very next day.I was invited to participate and directed to
meet at the Metrolink City of Industry station at 9:00 am.
Operation
Lifesaver, is a national, non-profit education and awareness program
dedicated
to ending tragic collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail
grade crossings
and on railroad rights-of-way.Operation
Lifesaver promotes the principles of the three E’s, therefore education, such as giving presentations
to school children, professional and student drivers, engineering,
inventing of newer and safer warning devices at
highway-rail grade crossings and enforcement
which is what “officer-on-a-train” is about.
Law
enforcement officers ride in the locomotive cab to see what
train
crews see every day.Other officers are
posted at the highway-rail grade crossings that the Operation Lifesaver
train
encounters to enforce the laws.Law
enforcement takes their experience with them long after the train
leaves.Railroading
is dangerous enough without pedestrians and motorists trying to run a
crossing,
encroaching or trespassing on railroad property.Operation
Lifesaver is a cooperative effort between local
and national railroads-both freight and passenger, and government
agencies.There were representatives from
Metrolink,
Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, law enforcement, and
Operation
Lifesaver.The catch phrase of Operation
Lifesaver is “Look, Listen, Live!”
The
first thing I noticed at the Metrolink
City of Industry station was that every one of the 730 parking spaces
was
occupied.There is a large expansion
project of this parking lot which includes an entry which is separated
from the
railroad by an underpass.I checked in
with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Officer Steve Smith, the
Metrolink
Sheriff.He introduced me to other
participants from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the
Union
Pacific Railroad Police and California Highway Patrol.I also visited with Metrolink Rail Safety
members Jesus Ojeda and Tracy Berge.Also in attendance for this exercise was Jim McInerney from the
California State Public Utilities Commission which has jurisdiction
over
highway-rail grade crossings.
Earlier
in the morning Sheriff Steve Smith had
briefed his troops and they had already patroled the five
highway-rail grade
crossings from the station to the west.Crossings involved in this exercise included Brea
Canyon Road,
Lemon
Street,
Fairway
Drive,
Nogales
Street and Fullerton
Road.By 9:00
am
the troops had
already given out at least 5 citations.Our
train was to operate from 10
am
to 12:30
pm,
which is the time that our track authority
was to expire.This meant that for 2
½ hours
we were in control of the north main track on the Metrolink Riverside
Line.Operation Lifesaver had a table set
up with
literature and a few other handouts such as key chains and buttons.One button that I picked up will be shipped
to a friend in Alaska
to become part of his
impressive railroad button collection.
At
9:45
am
our train was in view
about a mile down the track.Sheriff
Smith raised his hand, put it on top of his head and announced “hot
rail” to
warn everybody that the train was imminent.At 9:48
the train pulled into the
station.This impressive train included
Metrolink number 800, an ex-Amtrak F40 locomotive, the beautiful
“Silver
Lariat” passenger dome car, Burlington Northern Santa Fe GE AC4400
number 4341,
Amtrak F59 PHI number 464 and the brand new Union Pacific GE AC4400
number
6003.After the train pulled into the
station and most of the non law enforcement participants entered the
Silver
Lariat, I was assigned to be on the head end of the train at all times
when the
train was moving.Along with the Union
Pacific train crew, the head end personnel included Sheriff Smith, CHP
Lt. Chuck Geletko, another LASD Deputy John Almeda, another member of
the press and myself.We boarded UP 6003
at 10:01 am.
The
area we were going to patrol is a double
mainline track with 65 mph permissible speed.However in order for us to attain such a speed, the train first
had to
be backed up to the east approximately ¼ mile to pass and reset
a signal where
the railroad converges a single main line.An interesting note would be that Metrolink had a conductor and
engineer
aboard the train too.Their engineer
occupied “SCAX 800” when we were in reverse mode.At
10:11
we received our green
signal to proceed westbound and Conductor Bob Corbett gave the
announcement
“highball” which means proceed forward.Engineer Angel Velazquez started the train westbound for the
first of
our two runs.This run was uneventful
but conductor Bob Corbett pointed out that a distant crossing west of
the Operation Lifesaver area has
had at least one suicide.
