The man identified by a broadcast report as the engineer in Tuesday’s Metrolink crash was the lead plaintiff in a union lawsuit opposing the installation of audio and video monitoring systems in train cabs 5 years ago.
Glenn William Steele was identified to NBC4 by his son Shawn, of Temecula, as the engineer of the Los Angeles-bound Metrolink train 102 that collided with an abandoned truck in Oxnard early Tuesday.
Steele, 62, was one of four critically injured patients from the wreck. NBC4 reported that Metrolink flew Shawn to Ventura County Medical Center, and that his father was aware of his son’s presence.
Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson would not confirm Steele’s identity as the train’s engineer.
Steele and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) were the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, known as Metrolink, claiming the monitoring system known as a locomotive digital video recorder system (LVDR) was installed without consultation or approval and was a violation of their rights to privacy and due process.
Metrolink installed the system in locomotive cabs in October, 2009, after it was found that an engineer had been texting on his cell phone moments before his commuter train collided head on with a Union Pacific freight train on a single line in Chatsworth, killing 25 people in September 2008.
The lawsuit before the US District Court for the Central District of California, was dismissed by Judge Percy Anderson on June 30, 2010. An appeal to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was dismissed in February 2012.
—City News Service