Phil Anderson can be reached at (785) 295-1195 or

RAIL FACTS

• Approximately every two hours in the United States, either a vehicle or pedestrian is involved in a

collision with a train.

• Nearly 50 percent of vehicle-train collisions occur at crossings with active warning devices, such as

gates, lights and bells.

• Trains can't stop quickly. The average train traveling at 55 mph takes a mile or more to stop.

• A motorist is 20 times more likely to die in a crash involving a train than in a collision involving another

motor vehicle.

• On average, more people die in highway-rail grade crossing crashes in the United States each year than

in all commercial and general aviation crashes combined.

• Fore more information, visit

SOURCE: Federal Railroad Administration

Conductor in LA Train Crash Said to Fail Drug Test
Bloomberg
28 (Bloomberg) -- The conductor of a Union Pacific Corp. locomotive tested positive for a controlled substance after a crash with a Los Angeles commuter train that killed 25 people last year, two individuals familiar with a US investigation said. ...
Engineer in fatal Metrolink crash let teens ride in cab, sources say Los Angeles Times
Report: Train engineer allowed teens to ride along San Jose Mercury News
Net users can see safety board data on train tragedy Los Angeles Daily News
Inland Empire News - OCRegister
all 24 news articles

In Wilmington, a family keeps a lonely vigil
for a dead husband and father
Pat Johnson and her daughters know their public grieving won't bring back Chuck Johnson, who
died on the job at the Union Pacific yard in 2007, but they carry on day after day.
By Susannah Rosenblatt
February 17, 2009
On a dull Wilmington corner, where big rigs shudder by, Pat Johnson stands in protest.
A homemade sign, black and blue marker stenciled on white poster board, explains: "In loving
memory of my husband Charles Johnson who died at UP from neglect."
Johnson is unsure what, if anything, the public vigils she and her two daughters keep outside the
Union Pacific rail yard will do. Offer closure, maybe. Acknowledgment of what she and her
daughters have lost. Time to grieve.
But she knows what they won't do: Bring back Chuck, who suffered a heart attack, toppled
nearly 4 feet from a train platform and died on the asphalt. Her sorrow has brought her here, to
make known the death of her husband of 40 years.
Nearby, a small table holds photos of the man -- holding a moon-faced baby girl, looking
bemusedly up from a newspaper 40 years ago, back when he had hair. The Johnsons were each
other's best friends. Their home in Huntington Beach was the cool hangout for their girls and
their friends. A man's man, Chuck would wander Home Depot's aisles ogling tools and fuss over
his 1950 Triumph 650 motorcycle.
Johnson knows the official version of what happened to Chuck. But that doesn't stop her from
wondering about that night, if something went wrong, if more could have been done. The 405
Freeway onramp across the street doesn't look comforting, but the 63-year-old grandmother and
her daughters "feel better when we're here," Johnson says. "Maybe it's a way of venting anger,
venting emotions.
"Will we make a difference? I don't know."
Chuck was working as a Union Pacific ground man on track No. 805 on May 21, 2007, climbing
up and down train cars, securing freight deposited by cranes. A crane operator last saw him
standing on a platform about 8:35 p.m. Moments later, a worker spied a flash of orange reflector
vest between two cars. "Ground man down!" he shouted into his radio. Paramedics were called at
8:46.
Chuck, according to witnesses and official incident reports, was alive and responsive. He
wiggled his fingers for his buddies. It's unclear how long he lay there, bleeding from the back of
his head, until the paramedics arrived at 8:57 p.m. Chuck was pronounced dead at 9:15 p.m.
Word of Chuck's death didn't spread immediately; when the overnight shift arrived an hour or so
later, he lay there still. That night, many of the men, shaken by their fallen colleague, walked off
the job in protest.
The Los Angeles County coroner's report is unequivocal: Charles Johnson, 63, his arteries
severely blocked in several places, died of a heart attack triggered by physical activity. Three
investigations into his death -- one by Union Pacific, a brief inquiry by Cal-OSHA and another
by the Federal Railroad Administration -- echoed the coroner's report.
Yet Johnson believes that something else went wrong, a contention she says was bolstered by
Chuck's co-workers.
The paramedics had trouble finding Chuck in the massive yard, one former employee told her.
And Union Pacific management, employees say, didn't seem to have an emergency plan. Rail
yard officials declined to respond to those allegations.
Some of his co-workers said they couldn't be sure the train cars Chuck was loading were secured,
as mandated by federal safety regulations. With no brakes on, a crane delivering 20-foot
containers could slam the cars with enough force to knock a man to the ground.
Company spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said she could not comment on workers' specific
allegations but stressed, "Safety is our No. 1 priority at Union Pacific." The Wilmington facility,
she said, has a strong safety record.
"Was there anything that could have been done?" Richmond said. "From the coroner's report, it
doesn't seem like it."
Union Pacific paid the funeral expenses. She described it as a "tragic situation."
Johnson retained attorney Anthony Petru, who specializes in railroad law, but she said he told
her the case would not be "cost-effective" to pursue. He no longer represents her.
Under federal law, Johnson must prove that the railroad was negligent or violated safety
regulations that led to her husband's death to win a lawsuit. Although most federal railroad cases
are won by railroad employee plaintiffs, Petru said, "It's not a slam-dunk."
With the evidence and odds against her, Johnson soldiers on. She does it for Chuck, she says,
and for the men he worked with, a couple of dozen of whom showed up at a modest memorial
for him last spring. The outpouring of support surprised and comforted a family numb with grief.
"You don't remember what it's like to be happy," said the Johnsons' daughter Shannon Selof, 38.
"We don't want people to see us as crazy grieving widow and children. We want to do what's
right, and protect the other workers that work here. Nothing will bring my dad back . . . [but] it's
kind of one of those where you want to scream from the mountaintop: 'Hey! This happened!
Nothing was done!' "
And so Johnson protests. She lays in bed sometimes, asking Chuck if she's doing the right thing.
When Union Pacific workers contacted her, telling her their memories and fears, she says she
had her answer.
Even now, nearly two years later, Union Pacific workers in fluorescent orange vests stop at the
corner that Johnson has claimed, listening, bending down to offer hugs. Knowing that Pat
Johnson had no income, Chuck's former co-workers collected $2,800 for her.
Since Chuck passed away, a railroad claims agent visited, called and came to the memorial
seeking Johnson's signature on a liability waiver, she said. Union Pacific spokeswoman
Richmond said it is not "standard policy" to have an employee's widow sign legal documents.
Other than a security guard eyeing her outside Union Pacific's gates, Johnson hasn't
communicated with the railroad since mid-2007.
So they return to their corner -- Johnson, Shannon, Johnson's older daughter Lee, Johnson's
sister, Lee's boyfriend -- a tight little band. Some tractor-trailer drivers honk their horns, a few
men wave from their cabs as they pull into the rail yard gate.
When the traffic din fades, you can hear Lee calling on her battery-operated megaphone: "Don't
let this be your family! Where is the justice for Charles Johnson?"
susannah.rosenblatt
@latimes.com
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

OSHA Whistleblower Investigation Finds Railroad Co. Retaliated Against
Worker
· Feb 22, 2009
OSHA has ordered Union Pacific Railroad Co., headquartered in Omaha, to reassign a Beverly,
Iowa, welder to his former position, reimburse the welder for travel expenses, and pay
compensatory damages associated with personal hardship following a whistleblower
investigation.
OSHA investigated the employee's allegation that Union Pacific retaliated against him for
requesting a lookout while performing work on adjacent railroad tracks and asking for tools to
make the field weld process safer.
The investigation found that the track maintenance manager illegally abolished the welder
position in Beverly, forcing the worker to accept a welding position in Marshalltown, Iowa,
which increased his daily commute by 131 miles and took him away from his family for
extended periods of time.
"A supervisor does not have the right to abolish a job position because he becomes annoyed by a
worker voicing safety concerns," said Charles E. Adkins, OSHA's regional administrator in
Kansas City, Mo. "While OSHA is best known for ensuring the safety and health of employees,
it is also a federal government whistleblower protection agency."
The railroad carrier was further ordered to provide whistleblower rights information to its
employees. Either party in the case can file an appeal to the Department of Labor's Office of
Administrative Law Judges.
OSHA conducted the investigation under the whistleblower provisions of the Federal Rail Safety
Act (FRSA) as amended by the 9/11 Act of 2007. Railroad carriers are subject to the provisions
of the FRSA, which protects employees who report violations of any federal law, rule, or
regulation relating to railroad safety or security or who engage in other activities protected by the
act.