Here's a question on supervision. The other day I watched a Metrolink leave Glendale with the engineer in the F59PH. I could see the engineer clearly through the cab window. His posture indicated he was paying attention and observing the track ahead, including signal indications.

But if he'd been texting, it seems to me that would have been very clear, too. People who text are focused on the cell phone keyboard. He would have had the cell phone visible, and he would have been punching on the keyboard in front of him. Especially in an F59PH, this would be very visible from lineside.

This would have been several rule violations at once, including use of a personal cell phone, not focusing on the job, not following the safe course. One nickname for railroad supervisor is "weed weasel". Sanchez was in the habit of texting the teenage groupies for some weeks, and he did it many times a day. So where was the supervisor who should have seen pretty clearly, over a period of weeks at least, what Sanchez was doing?

It seems to me that OPRRMS is concentrating on an NTSB view of the accident, but there are other views, especially from a reasonable person's non-rail perspective: certainly, in fact, there will be lawsuits against Metrolink and Veolia for "failure to supervise".