Calif. rail agency cites engineer error in train collision

"When two trains are in the same place at the same time somebody's made a terrible mistake," said Tyrrell, who was shaking and near tears as she spoke with reporters.

Authorities later announced that the effort to recover bodies from the Metrolink train's crushed front car had ended, with the death toll at 24. It rose to 25 when USC Medical Center spokeswoman Adelaide DeLaCerda said a 50-year-old man taken to the hospital from the wreck died yesterday. She would not release his name.

"It was a very, very difficult operation," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. "It was like peeling an onion to find all the victims there."

A total of 135 people were injured, with 81 transported to hospitals in serious or critical condition. There was no overall condition update available yesterday, but a telephone survey of five hospitals found nine of 34 patients still critical. Many were described as having crush injuries.

Deputy Fire Chief Mario Rueda said the chance that anyone was still alive in the wreckage was "very remote." The last survivor was pulled out Friday evening, said Fire Captain Armando Hogan.

The collision occurred on a horseshoe-shaped section of track in Chatsworth at the west end of the San Fernando Valley, near a 500-foot-long tunnel underneath Stoney Point Park. There is a siding at one end of the tunnel where one train can wait for another to pass, Tyrrell said.

"Even if the train is on the main track, it must go through a series of signals and each one of the signals must be obeyed," Tyrrell said.

"What we believe happened, barring any new information from the NTSB, is we believe that our engineer failed to stop . . . and that was the cause of the accident. Tyrrell said Metrolink determined the cause by reviewing dispatch records and computers.

National Transportation Safety Board member Kitty Higgins said her agency, which is leading the inquiry, is waiting to complete its investigation before making any statements about the cause of the accident. It hopes to complete its final report within a year.