-
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talks about his involvement in the 2008 Metrolink train crash. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
Claudia Souser reads the names of 25 people, including her husband Doyle Souser, as her daughters Kelsey and Mackenzie Souser ring the bell from that Metrolink train in honor of the 25 people who lost their lives in the Chatsworth Metrolink crash. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
SoundThe gallery will resume inseconds
-
California Transportation Commissioner Yvonne Burke hugs Claudia Souser who lost her husband Doyle Souser, in the 2008 Metrolink train crash. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
Kelsey and Mackenzie Souser who lost their father, Doyle Souser, in the the 2008 Metrolink crash in chatsworth, ring the bell from that Metrolink train in honor of the 25 people who lost their lives in the Chatsworth crash. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
-
Metrolink Vice-Chair Brian Humphrey speaks at a memorial event for the 2008 Metrolink train crash in Chatsworth. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
-
Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metrolink Director Kathryn Barger leaves a message at the train safety exhibit at Union Station in Los Angeles. A memorial observance and rail safety exhibit to remember the 25 people who lost their lives and the more than 100 who were injured in the crash with a Union Pacific train was Wednesday at Union Station in Los Angeles. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Expand
A decade to the day after a train crash changed their lives forever, a handful of the families of the victims who died in the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth joined public officials Wednesday morning at Union Station to remember the lives that were lost.
The daughters of Doyle Sauser, a Camarillo man among those killed when the passenger train collided head-on with a freight train on the border of Stoney Point Park, rang a bell 25 times as their mother, Claudia, read the name of each victim.
The bell, usually on display at Metrolink’s Pomona dispatch center as a reminder, was from that train.
“I don’t know many of you, I don’t know your story,” Claudia Sauser said, speaking to two dozen other family members. “But the emotions we’ve shared are similar.
“We’ve all had to deal with an empty chair and empty bed, an empty room. We think, ‘What would life have been like if this hadn’t happened.’ “
Along with the 25 killed, more than 100 others were injured in the accident on Sept. 12, 2008, the worst train collision in recent California history.
Metrolink hosted the remembrance on the north patio of the downtown Los Angeles train station.
Former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, choking up, said he remembered having to tell “a mother and father that their child wouldn’t be coming home.”
Villaraigosa and others reflected on the carnage of the accident, between that Metrolink train with three coaches and a Union Pacific freight train. Federal investigators determined the cause of the crash was a contracted engineer operating the Metrolink who missed a red signal while texting on his cell phone.
In the years after the crash, Metrolink officials said they worked to make the train system the safest in the country. Several spoke about becoming the first railway in the country to adopt positive train control, a computerized system that tracks trains’ locations to prevent collisions.
“Each and every day you have been in the minds of people at Metrolink,” Keith Millhouse, a former chairman of the rail agency, said to the families. “You were the inspiration for these changes. People you don’t know have suffered, grieving for your families.”
Later Wednesday afternoon, another memorial will be held, this one near the crash site.