By John Coté and Marisa Lagos
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — Safety inspectors are investigating the cause of a Municipal Railway crash that injured 48 people, four of them severely, when one train rear-ended another at the West Portal Station on Saturday, authorities said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene following the crash, which Muni spokesman Judson True said occurred just before 3 p.m. when an L-Taraval smashed into the back of a K-Ingleside train near the station’s boarding platform.
The impact of the crash shattered the front window of the L train and crumpled its steel nose. The shattered windshield, apparently made of safety glass, stayed in place.
Both trains were headed in the outbound direction, but the K train was apparently stopped, authorities said.
The most seriously injured was the driver of the L train, who was conscious when paramedics arrived, said Deputy Fire Chief Pat Gardner. Three riders were also severely injured, authorities said. None of those injuries was life threatening, and all four patients were in stable condition, a nursing supervisor at San Francisco General Hospital said.
Victims taken to hospitals
Twenty-four people suffered serious injuries and were also taken to local hospitals by ambulance, authorities said. The remaining injuries were minor, and the victims were able to walk to a Muni bus that took them to the hospital.
“This is probably one of the largest we’ve had” in recent years, Gardner said of the crash, referring to the number of people injured. Federal and state investigators have been notified of the crash, True said. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said his agency was considering launching a formal probe.
Investigators have interviewed the operator of the L train, True said. It is also standard procedure for train operators in accidents to be tested for drugs and alcohol.
The collision was the latest in a spate of mass transit accidents around the country. Last month, a Metro commuter train slammed into the rear of another subway train near Washington, D.C., killing nine people and injuring scores of others. In May, 49 people were injured when one Boston trolley car crashed into another.
Those accidents, as well as the violent collision of a commuter train with a freight train in September in Los Angeles, which killed 20 people, have prompted federal safety investigators to raise concerns about the nation’s aging railcars, tracks and signal systems.
Screaming and yelling
Witnesses to Saturday’s Muni crash said several people with head and neck injuries were loaded onto gurneys and taken away by ambulance.
West Portal resident Linda Burke, 58, and her husband, Mike Burke, 59, were walking home after watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at a nearby theater and were across the street when the crash occurred.
They said the K train appeared to be stopped when the L train slammed into it.
“It sounded like a bomb or an explosion. We looked up and said, ‘What the heck was that?’ ” Linda Burke said. “All this smoke was pouring out of the back of the streetcar” that was hit.
She said there was screaming and yelling; some passengers fell to the floor of the trains. People came running from nearby businesses to help, including one person who handed out napkins to bleeding victims.
The Burkes said the sound of the crash and the resultant damage suggested the L train had been going faster than it usually would have in the station.
“He must have been flying the way the front end caved in,” said Mike Burke.
West Portal resident Dan Dudum, 48, was two doors down inside the Philosophers Club, a bar.
“It shook the building - all of a sudden the building went like that,” he said, gesturing with his hand from side to side, “and I said, ‘Hey, something’s not right here.’ ”
“I didn’t know what it was, but it was loud,” Dudum said, adding that firefighters arrived seven minutes after the crash.
Muni personnel in yellow fluorescent vests swarmed the scene afterward, investigating the accident alongside more than 10 police officers and 40 firefighters and paramedics who blocked off the area with yellow police tape. Dozens of people stopped near the station - located at the end of the neighborhood’s commercial district - to gawk at the crash.
True said officials have not determined why the trains crashed.
“We will look at everything from mechanical issues to human error,” he said, adding that the train’s speed will be part of the investigation.
West Portal resident Laurel Paul, who was in the nearby public library when the accident occurred, said she and her son rushed outside after hearing the crash.
“There was a huge crowd gathering outside the station,” she said. “I’ve been riding Muni since the 1970s, and I’ve never seen a train crumpled in the front with a shattered windshield.”
The crash forced Muni to halt service in both directions in the area and prompted authorities to shut down the intersection of West Portal Avenue and Ulloa Street. Claremont Street, a block off West Portal Avenue, was also shut down.
Buses provided service between the West Portal and Castro stations and between West Portal and the western side of the city.
“It sounded like a bomb or an explosion. We looked up and said, ‘What the heck was that?’”
Copyright 2009 San Francisco Chronicle
All Rights Reserved