Another area where Metrolink really dropped the ball was/is not having their entire fleet of locomotives and cab cars equipped with on-board cameras facing out the front windshield.

They STILL don't. And the FRA can issue emergency orders for switchmen to fill out paperwork on whether or not they're restored manual switches to their proper position, but it can't seem to find the guts to order Metrolink to immediately install them. Oh, that's right. Money is involved and Metrolink has a shoe-string budget. And remember what I mentioned earlier about the FRA being about as effective at policing railroads as the SEC was at policing Bernard Madoff.

The cameras aren't all that expensive. Vancouver's West Coast Express has them and one recently recorded an interesting video where some track construction heavy equipment didn't get in the clear in time and a collision ensued.

A camera on the Metrolink train would have answered, once and for all, what color the signal was at CP Topanga. The video would have been the "Zapruder film" of this investigation. Instead, we just have to take the word of the lowest-bidder signal maintainer who downloaded the pertinent information and may, or may not, have passed it along to the Feds in a proper chain-of-custody arrangement.