RAIL-CAR SAFETY DESIGNS TOUTED SECRETARY: TESTS BARELY HURT PASSENGER CARS.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Despite the continued controversy over push-pull train operations after last year's deadly Metrolink crash, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said Thursday that new safety enhancements are making cab cars safer than ever.

Standing near the site of the horrific Glendale crash train that killed 11 and injured 200, the nation's top transportation official said crash- management strategies tested Thursday morning at the government's Colorado research center are keeping trains from derailing and crumpling into passenger areas.

Metrolink has included the new designs in its $305 million order for nearly 100 new train cars.

``Commuter rail is safer - more than ever before,'' Mineta said at an afternoon news conference.

``By smashing a few trains in the desert, we hope to find new ways to keep millions of commuters safer everyday,'' he said. ``The bitter memory of the Glendale accident serves as a constant reminder our work is never finished.''

Push-pull operations were thrust into the spotlight after the Jan. 26, 2005, crash in Glendale when the southbound Metrolink commuter train was being pushed by a locomotive and led by a cab car when it ran into a sport utility vehicle parked on the track. The train then collided with a work train as well as an oncoming Metrolink train in the deadliest crash in Metrolink's history.

Metrolink says cab car-led trains - or push-pull - are standard worldwide, but critics believe putting heavier locomotives in front of the train are safer.

Assemblyman Dario Frommer, D-Glendale, chairman of the Assembly Special Committee on Rail Safety who has recommended that push operations be outlawed in California, called the Department of Transportation's announcement a ``smoke screen.''

``They can not change the simple fact that push-pull is inherently more dangerous to passengers than other modes of commuter rail operation,'' he said.

Mineta and Metrolink CEO David Solow had been in Pueblo, Colo., earlier Thursday for the eighth and final crash test of the new designs at the government research center. Crash-energy management is a system designed to distribute the impact of the crash throughout the train so passengers can avoid serious injuries.

Using crash-test dummies, the staged crash involved a five-car, cab-led passenger train traveling at 32 mph that ran into a parked locomotive with equally weighted freight cars.

The test showed that passengers in cars with the new designs can survive a crash at 36 mph - twice the speed as in trains without the system.

``Crash-energy management basically turned once-rigid train cars into gigantic shock absorbers,'' Mineta said.

Officials said only the first three feet of the car crumpled, compared to more than 20 feet in past crashes without the crash-management system.

Even more, the train did not derail, which Mineta called ``very, very significant.''

Last month, Metrolink approved a $305 million contract to buy 100 new cars with the crash-management system, beginning to fully replace its fleet of cab cars starting in 2009.

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) A January 2002 Transportation Department crash test showing train-to-train impact with conventional rail cars had horrific consequences, above. Right, Thursday's train-to-train crash test shows recently developed crash-energy management equipment suffers only minor damage.

U.S. Department of Transportation

(3) MINETA