Text messaging figures in U.S. train wreck probe

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Three days after a Metrolink commuter train ploughed head-on into a Union Pacific freight locomotive, the probe focused on operation of trackside warning signals and whether the Metrolink engineer may have failed to heed them.

Some 135 people were injured in the crash, more than 40 of them critically, in the deadliest U.S. rail tragedy in 15 years.

A local TV station, KCBS, reported that a teenage train enthusiast claimed to have received a cell phone text message from the commuter train engineer about a minute before the collision.

The National Transportation Safety Board is seeking to obtain cell phone records of the teenager and the engineer, said Kitty Higgins, a member of the board dispatched to the scene. The engineer, Robert Martin Sanchez, 46, died in the wreck. His cell phone has not been found, Higgins said.

NTSB officials have spoken to two teenage boys and their families, "and they've been fully cooperative," she added. But she declined to elaborate on those conversations.

"They're two young teenage boys who love trains, apparently rode the train and knew the engineer," Higgins told Reuters. "And there's some issue about whether they were texting with him, and that's what we're trying to track down."

A text message that appeared to have been sent about a minute before the crash by a person identified on the receiving cell phone as "Rob Sanchez Metro" said: "Yea ... usually @ Camarillo," KCBS sister station KCAL reported on Monday.

Railroad operating rules bar engineers from using cell phones and other electronic devices, or even having them within reach, while driving a train, a Metrolink spokesman said.

A Metrolink spokeswoman said on Saturday, the day after the accident, that the engineer was at fault because he failed to stop at a red light. But NTSB and railroad union officials said it was premature to draw such a conclusion.

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