The 2005 Glendale train crash occurred on January 26, 2005, at 6:03 a.m. PST, when a Metrolink commuter train collided with a

sport utility vehicle A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definitio ...

that had been parked on the tracks by a

suicidal Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or acad ...

man in an industrial area of

Glendale, California Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

, just east of the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

city limits, causing the deaths of 11 people and injuring 177 more. The driver of the car, who had changed his mind shortly before the impact but willingly left his car on the tracks, survived the incident and was charged with eleven counts of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

and one count of

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

Background

In the early morning

rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English, Indian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice e ...

period, southbound

Ventura County Line The Metrolink Ventura County Line is a commuter rail line serving Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles, in the Southern California system. The line is the successor of the short lived C ...

train #100 (approaching

) normally carried between 200 and 250 passengers; the northbound

Antelope Valley Line The Antelope Valley Line is a commuter rail line that serves the Northern Los Angeles County area as part of the Metrolink system. The northern segment of the line is rural in character because it travels through the sparsely populated Soleda ...

train #901 (leaving Los Angeles) normally carried between thirty and fifty passengers. The freight train involved in the crash was "tied down" (parked and unattended) on an auxiliary track known as "The Slide", running parallel along the west side of the main tracks, led by

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...

model EMD SD70M locomotive number 4323, and CEFX model

SD40-2 The EMD SD40-2 is a C-C diesel–electric locomotive built by EMD from 1972 to 1989. The SD40-2 was introduced in January 1972 as part of EMD's '' Dash 2'' series, competing against the GE U30C. Although higher-horsepower locomotives were av ...

number 3160, waiting to deliver

track ballast Track ballast is the material which forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties (UK: sleepers) are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties. It is used to bear the compression load of the railroad ties, rails, and rolling stock; ...

to repair tracks on the former

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

Coast Line Coast Line may refer to: * Coast Line (California), a railroad line * Coast Line (Denmark), a railroad line * Coast Line (Sri Lanka), a railroad line See also * Coastline A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea ...

which had previously been washed out in January 2005 by major

rainstorm Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

Crash

On January 26, 2005, at 6:03 a.m. PST, Metrolink's southbound

train #100 collided with a

that had been abandoned on the tracks immediately south of the Chevy Chase Drive

grade crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The t ...

and near a

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...

retail store on the Glendale–Los Angeles boundary (the western edge of the railroad right of way is the dividing line), in an industrial area north of

downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

. The train jackknifed and struck trains on either side of it—one a stationary Union Pacific freight train, and the other a northbound Metrolink

train (#901) traveling in the opposite direction. The chain-reaction collisions resulted in the deaths of eleven people. Among the first responders to the crash were employees of the Costco store adjacent to the accident site, who placed calls to

9-1-1 911, sometimes written , is an emergency telephone number for Argentina, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Maldives, Palau, Panama, Iraq, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay, as well as ...

and climbed the perimeter fence to aid the victims, pulling out survivors and using fire extinguishers until firefighters arrived. About 300 firefighters, helicopters and

cadaver dog A search-and-rescue (SAR) dog is a dog trained to respond to crime scenes, accidents, missing persons events, as well as natural or man-made disasters. These dogs detect human scent, which is a distinct odor of skin flakes and water and oil secr ...

s were brought to the crash site in order to help locate individuals trapped. Juan Manuel Álvarez, who had left his Jeep Cherokee Sport vehicle parked on the tracks, was arrested and charged with eleven counts of

with "special circumstances". Authorities and Álvarez's

legal defense In a civil proceeding or criminal prosecution under the common law or under statute, a defendant may raise a defense (or defence) in an effort to avert civil liability or criminal conviction. A defense is put forward by a party to defeat a s ...

claimed he was planning to commit

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

, but changed his mind at the last minute. Álvarez was convicted in June 2008 of the eleven counts plus one count of

, and though prosecutors sought a

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

, was instead sentenced in August 2008 to eleven consecutive

life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are c ...

s in prison with no possibility of parole.

Investigation

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

(NTSB) team investigated the crash, assisted by the

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a trade union, labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the ...

's (BLET) Safety Task Force. The Glendale Police Department led the criminal investigation, assisted by the

Union Pacific Police Department The Union Pacific Police Department (UPPD) is a private railroad police department and the law enforcement agency of the Union Pacific Railroad, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The UPPD is one of seven American Class I railroad law enforcement ...

and the

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD), officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is a law enforcement agency serving Los Angeles County, California. LASD is the largest sheriff's department in the United States a ...

, and the criminal case was tried in

Los Angeles County Superior Court The Superior Court of Los Angeles County is the California Superior Courts of California, Superior Court located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County. It is the largest single unified trial court in the United States. The Sup ...

. The southbound Metrolink train (#100) struck the parked Jeep that had been driven by Álvarez onto the tracks at the Chevy Chase Drive grade crossing just west of San Fernando Road, pushing the Jeep southward along the track towards the Los Feliz Boulevard undercrossing until automotive parts struck a track switch and became lodged under the leading car of the Metrolink train, raising it up and causing the train to derail. Cars from the derailed train jackknifed, hitting both the locomotive of the stationary Union Pacific freight train and sideswiping the rear of the passing northbound #901 Metrolink passenger train. This caused the rear cars of the northbound train to

derail A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock ...

, and at least one car rolled over onto its side. A fire, involving one or more passenger cars, was caused by spilled

diesel fuel Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil (historically) or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a re ...

. The root cause of the crash was attributed to the driver of the automobile, Juan Manuel Álvarez of Compton, who deliberately drove onto, and left his vehicle on, the tracks while allegedly attempting to commit suicide. Having slashed his wrists and stabbed himself repeatedly in the chest, he parked his car on the tracks to finish the attempt. However, Álvarez changed his mind and attempted to leave the tracks. Because he was unable to dislodge his vehicle from the rain-soaked gravel and slick rails, he abandoned the vehicle moments before the crowded southbound train approached. Both this causation and the end result have many similarities to that of the

Ufton Nervet rail crash The Ufton Nervet rail crash occurred on 6 November 2004 when a passenger train collided with a stationary car on a Level crossings in the United Kingdom, level crossing on the Reading–Taunton line near Ufton Nervet, Berkshire, England. The co ...

in the United Kingdom, which occurred only three months previously, although in that case the driver of the car stayed in the vehicle and was killed. Early rumors of the incident being a

terrorist attack Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war a ...

were dismissed, as no connections to any terrorist organization existed with the suspect.

Reaction

The wreck caused intense attention to the train configuration. Many commuter trains are pushed from the back by the locomotive in a

push-pull configuration An aircraft constructed with a push-pull configuration has a combination of forward-mounted Tractor configuration, tractor (pull) Propeller (aircraft), propellers, and backward-mounted (pusher configuration, pusher) propellers. Historical The e ...

, including Metrolink trains returning to

Union Station A union station, union terminal, joint station, or joint-use station is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway company, railway companies, allowing passengers to connect conveniently bet ...

. In this configuration, the first car is a

cab car A control car, cab car (North America), control trailer, or driving trailer (UK, Ireland, Australia and India) is a non-powered rail vehicle from which a train can be operated. As dedicated vehicles or regular passenger cars, they have one or t ...

. The push-pull configuration eliminates the need for elaborate turnaround maneuvers and facilities to reverse a train's direction. There was criticism that the configuration made the accident worse: claims that if the heavier engine were ahead of the passenger cars, then casualties would have been reduced and might have prevented derailment.

Aftermath

Regular Metrolink passenger service was restored through the crash site the following Monday, January 31. Immediately afterward, Metrolink temporarily roped off the first cars in all of their trains; passengers were seated starting in the second car. Metrolink gradually modified this policy. In 2007, the line permitted passengers to sit in a portion of the first car when in "rear-pushed mode". Seating is still not permitted in the roped-off, forward-most section of the first cars (just behind the engineer's cab) until the introduction of new rear cab cars. The day following the incident, police intervened in a similar "copycat" incident in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

, where a suicidal man parked his car on Metrolink tracks. The man drove away from the tracks when police arrived and was later arrested. Survivor John Phipps was made famous due to a ''

Los Angeles Daily News The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California, after the unrelated ''Los Angeles Times'', and the flagship newspaper of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado ...

'' photograph of his farewell to his family and high school sweetheart, which was written in his blood on the interior of a passenger car. The Chevy Chase Drive Crossing was undamaged, and remained fully unchanged after the crash. The crossing was upgraded in 2013 with quad gate barriers and 4 bells. 2005 Glendale train crash Memorial

A ceremony commemorating the event was held on the one year anniversary, in which attendees honored the victims and recognized the heroes who helped save lives. Attorneys Brian Spanish and Jerome Ringler filed a negligence lawsuit against Metrolink on behalf of a dozen victims in January 2009, claiming that the engineer saw the Jeep away but did not apply the emergency brakes until away. In an October 14, 2009, article appearing in the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', Metrolink announced it had reached an agreement to

settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an in ...

most of the remaining claims. By the following month, Metrolink paid $30 million in lawsuit settlements, with several large payments of multiple million dollars for four cases. Other

litigation A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. ...

against Metrolink was still ongoing, raising the settlement to a tentative $39 million in December 2009, which closes the majority of the 186 complaints against the agency, eleven

wrongful death Wrongful death is a type of legal claim or cause of action against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as authorized by statute. In wrongful death cases, survivors are ...

lawsuits, and sixteen serious injury lawsuits. The Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA), the governing body of Metrolink, has invested over $500 million to buttress safety features along of track from Ventura to

San Bernardino San Bernardino ( ) is a city in and the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 census, making it the List of ...

and the northern

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

counties. Upgrades included are "sealed" grade crossings, safer rail cars and locomotives, automatic train stops and the nation's first onboard rail video cameras and the SCRRA is included in the nation's first

positive train control Positive train control (PTC) is a family of automatic train protection systems deployed in the United States. Most of the United States' national rail network mileage has a form of PTC. These systems are generally designed to check that trains a ...

system.

Casualties

Eleven people were killed in the collision, while between 100 and 200 people were injured. * Manuel Alcala, 51 * Julia Bennett, 44 * Alfonso Caballero, 62 * Elizabeth Hill, 62 * Henry Kilinski, 39 * Scott McKeown, 42 * Thomas Ormiston, 58, the conductor of train #901 * William Parent, 53 * Leonard Romero, 53 * James Tutino, 47 * Don Wiley, 58

Suspect

Juan Manuel Álvarez was allegedly suicidal long before the incident occurred. According to some reports, he had attempted suicide previously. In addition, he was a known

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug use, recreational or Performance-enhancing substance, performance-enhancing drug and less commonly as a secon ...

addict prone to delusional behavior. At the time of the crash, Álvarez, the father of two young children, was experiencing marital difficulties; his wife, Carmelita Ochoa, had filed a

restraining order A restraining order or protective order is an order used by a court to protect a person in a situation often involving alleged domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, assault, harassment, stalking, or sexual assault. Restraining and perso ...

against him months before the incident, claiming he had become erratic, threatening and controlling to her and their children. He reportedly was employed as a handyman in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton. Police initially believed that Álvarez decided to kill himself on the day of the collision, but that he changed his mind immediately before the train hit his vehicle, jumping out of the car and observing as the crash took place. He fled the scene but was later found at a friend's home in

Atwater Village Atwater Village is a neighborhood in the 13th district of Los Angeles, California. Much of Atwater Village lies in the fertile Los Angeles River flood plain. Located in the northeast region of the city, Atwater Village borders Griffith Park and ...

. He was charged with, and subsequently convicted of, eleven counts of murder with "special circumstances". Police say following investigations indicated Álvarez may have intended to cause the crash without committing suicide. Authorities filed additional charges against him for murder with intent.

Legal proceedings

Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Álvarez under a seldom-used state law under which train wrecking resulting in a person's death is a capital offense. This law dates from 1873, and was used to prosecute

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

train robbers who were known to blow up tracks to rob trains. During the trial, the defense maintained their claim that the crash was the result of Álvarez's aborted suicide attempt and he never intended to hurt anyone, but prosecutors claimed he deliberately caused the crash in an attempt to get attention from his estranged wife, citing that he doused his SUV with gasoline beforehand. A relative of one of the victims questioned why Álvarez did not simply lie down on the tracks if it was really a suicide attempt. On June 26, 2008, Álvarez was found guilty of eleven counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and one count of arson related to the incident. He was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...

of the train-wrecking charge. On July 15, the jury recommended

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

without the possibility of parole. On August 20, Álvarez was formally sentenced to eleven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glendale train crash Glendale train crash 2005 disasters in the United States 2005 murders in the United States Accidents and incidents involving Metrolink (California)

2005 Glendale train crash The 2005 Glendale train crash occurred on January 26, 2005, at 6:03 a.m. Pacific Standard Time Zone, PST, when a Metrolink (California), Metrolink commuter train collided with a sport utility vehicle that had been parked on the tracks by a r ...

Derailments in the United States Railroad crossing accidents in the United States Mass murder in 2005 Mass murder in California Mass murder in the United States in the 2000s Suicide by train 2000s crimes in California Railway accidents in 2005 Arson in 2005 January 2005 crimes in the United States Arson in California