On This Day in 2005, Glendale Train Crash

On January 26, 2005, Southern California’s morning commute was shattered when a Metrolink passenger train struck a vehicle left on the tracks near Chevy Chase Drive on the Glendale–Los Angeles boundary. The collision set off a chain of derailments and secondary impacts involving three trains, leaving 11 people dead and roughly 180 others injured, one of the region’s most devastating commuter-rail tragedies.

The southbound Metrolink train involved was Ventura County Line train #100, operating in push-pull service with a cab car leading. A Jeep Cherokee had been driven onto the railroad right of way and abandoned on the track a short distance beyond the grade crossing, and the train hit it at around the start of the rush hour. Investigators later treated the vehicle’s placement on the track as a criminal act, and the driver survived.

The impact did not end at the point of collision. Debris from the vehicle and the forces involved contributed to Metrolink #100 derailing, and the derailed consist then struck an unoccupied Union Pacific gravel/work train that had been left standing on a siding nearby. The sequence continued as the Metrolink train jackknifed and collided with passing Metrolink train #901 traveling in the opposite direction, derailing equipment across multiple tracks.

Witness accounts and official summaries described a chaotic scene in darkness and early light, with wrecked cars, twisted metal, and a fire burning near the front of the commuter consist. Passengers were forced to find their way out through damaged cars while emergency calls poured in. Some of the first help came from workers at the nearby Costco, who climbed the perimeter fence, brought fire extinguishers, and assisted victims before the full emergency response was in place.

The response quickly expanded into a major multi-agency operation, with large numbers of fire and medical units converging from surrounding jurisdictions. Helicopters were used as part of the response, and investigators and rescuers worked the site as both an accident scene and a crime scene. The scale of the casualties and the complexity of three derailed trains made the work of searching, triage, and recovery both urgent and prolonged.

In the months and years that followed, the crash became inseparable from the criminal case against Juan Manuel Álvarez, who was accused of leaving the Jeep on the track. In 2008, he was convicted of 11 counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and one count of arson, and he was sentenced to 11 consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Each January 26, the date endures as a grim marker for commuters and rail workers alike: a reminder of how a single act on the tracks can ripple outward into irreversible loss.