Fox 11 News In Depth: Chatsworth Train Collision: 10 Years Later

(FOX 11) - SNEAK PREVIEW! We are posting this show in advance with the hope that you'll watch and spread the word to your friends to watch us this weekend on TV.

On Sunday, September 9, 2018 FOX 11 News IN DEPTH moves to KCOP My13 at 12 Noon during the NFL football season.

We start with this powerful reminder of a tragedy that happened 10 years ago this coming Wednesday, Sept. 12: The Chatsworth Train Collision: 10 Years Later.

Below you'll find the full show, and here's an even more In Depth discussion on my podcast, What The Hal?

SEGMENT ONE:

Wednesday, September 12, 2018 will be the 10th anniversary of the Chatsworth Train Collision. In this segment... what happened and why two trains smacked head-on killing 25 and injuring well over a hundred others. Metrolink Board Member, at the time, Keith Millhouse recalls the injured as being 165. It was a very dark day.

Engineer Dwight O'Neil has been taking passenger from one place to another for seven years. He started working on passenger trains three years after the Chatsworth crash. We climbed up into his locomotive and watched as his took us on the same track where the crash happened.

"Somewhere right in here they saw each other," he exclaims.

Ten years ago - on a single track from Chatsworth to the Simi Valley - the engineers of Metrolink Commuter Train #111 and a Union Pacific freight train traveling around 40 miles an hour couldn't stop in time to avoid a catastrophic head on crash!

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that The freight train's engineer only had two seconds before impact to trigger the emergency air brake. Metrolink engineer Robert Sanchez never hit his brakes.

Sanchez, it was ruled, ran a red light that indicated it was not safe to proceed into the single track section. They found he was texting and distracted.

We talk to passengers and Metrolink workers as we establish what happened.

SEGMENT TWO:

The day after the crash the last body to be pulled from the wreckage was that of Doyle Souser. He left behind a wife, Claudia, and three kids. In this highly emotional segment, we meet Claudia and her daughter Mackenzie as they describe the horror of the day and life since.

SEGMENT THREE:

Current Metrolink CEO Art Leahy and past Metrolink Board Members Keith Millhouse and Richard Katz talk about the safety changes made at METROLINK and, particularly Positive Train Control (PTC) and why we probably wouldn't be having a 10th anniversary of this tragedy if had been in existence in 2008.

SEGMENT FOUR:

We hear from first responders in this segment. These were people from many agencies that threw caution to the wind to save as many lives as they could. They remind us of the horror that day for those thrown into the chaos.