LOS ANGELES — Metrolink is filing a lawsuit against Hyundai–Rotem, a passenger car builder, after allegations of faulty parts and a breach of contract and warranty.
Metrolink spokesperson Sherita Coffelt confirms with Trains News Wire that Metrolink has filed suit against Hyundai-Rotem company in Los Angeles County Superior Court for allegations of “breach of contract and warranty related to the design and manufacturing of the Rotem cab cars.”
“Metrolink continues to keep safety as its top priority. The agency is currently making repairs to the fleetwide defects of the Rotem cab cars identified during the safety assessment after the Oxnard incident,” Coffelt writes in an email.
The 2006 contract called for the delivery of 54 passenger cars and 34 cab cars at a cost of nearly $306 million. Metrolink ended up purchasing 57 cab cars.
Metrolink claims that the cab car pilot assemblies on the Hyundai-built cars were defective in that they did not sufficiently protect trains from derailing, an NBC Los Angeles article reports.
In February 2015, a Metrolink commuter train collided with a utility truck on a grade crossing in Oxnard, Calif. The pilot assembly detached from the cab car it derailed. The incident killed the engineer and injured more than 30 passengers.
According to the article, four of the five welds on the pilot assembly were not securely attached to the cab car, Metrolink claims. The commuter rail agency then inspected all other cab cars in its fleet and determine that all cab cars had similar issues.
In response to the allegations and suit, Andrew Hyer, U.S. marketing and business development manager at Huyandi Rotem, tells Trains News Wire that “[Hyundai Rotem Co.] takes great pride in our products and believe we produce the most technologically advanced rail cars available with safety considerations paramount. We are confident that we will prevail in this matter.”
Both organizations reserved further comment due to the pending litigation.
While I haven’t followed the details of this accident and investigation recently, it would seem to me that the force of colliding with the truck was the primary cause of the derailment, as well as causing the pilot to detach. That may have contributed to the severity of the derailment, but not have caused it in the first place.
Well, a pilot assembly is not supposed to keep the train from derailing, that’s not it’s purpose…what I think Metrolink meant to say was that the pilot wasn’t supposed to detach from the cab car and cause a derailment…big difference.
“The commuter rail agency then inspected all other cab cars in its fleet and determine that all cab cars had similar issues.”
PROOFREADING. Please read these before you publish them. “Determined.” Past tense.
Let’s continue to ask foreign companies to design and build our RR equipment.
It would be helpful to know what the specs called for as to “protection” from derailment. Was it supposed to protect against a 80,000 pound semi at 79mph or something reasonably attainable?