COMMUTER TRAIN HITS, DRAGS VAN.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

AGUA DULCE - A Metrolink train slammed into a van stuck on the railroad tracks in a remote spot near Agua Dulce early Tuesday, injuring a man in the van and one passenger aboard the southbound commuter train.

Ninety people were on the train at 5 a.m. traveling from the Antelope Valley to Union Station in Los Angeles when it hit the van at 50 mph to 70 mph, dragging it about 500 feet, police and Metrolink officials said. Passengers waited about an hour for a new train.

The sole occupant of the van, Frederick Bradrick, 54, of Palmdale, was taken by ambulance to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, said Officer George White of the California Highway Patrol. His injuries were not believed to be life-threatening. One passenger aboard the train complained of injury but was not immediately taken to a hospital, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said.

Bradrick, who had been drinking, was in a van that was traveling along the tracks about 100 yards from the Capra Road crossing west of Agua Dulce Canyon Road when one wheel became stuck in the tracks, CHP Sgt. Lewis Hall said. Bradrick said he wasn't the driver, though nobody else was in the area, Hall said.

Investigators spent several minutes searching the area for a driver who might have been thrown from the van in the collision, but no one was found, Tyrrell said.

``It turned out not to be true,'' she said. ``We spent a great deal of time verifying it.''

The CHP will investigate before determining whether Bradrick will be charged, Hall said.

The commuter train was in the engine push mode - when the train is pushed from behind by the locomotive, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. The system, designed so the trains don't have to turn around to shift direction, is the subject of a lawsuit filed by the family of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Deputy James Tutino, who died in the Jan. 26 Metrolink crash in Glendale that killed 11 people and injured 180 others. Critics say motorists and others can't tell whether a train is coming or going in push mode. Metrolink officials counter that the practice is federally approved.

``Just because you think you're seeing the back of the train, it might be moving toward you,'' Tyrrell said. ``He's a very lucky man. When one tangles with a train, one tangles at his own peril.''

CAPTION(S):

map

Map:

Metrolink train crash