Union Pacific worker killed in Metrolink crash identified

Photo: An investigator examines the site of the March 20, 2010 crash east of El Monte that killed a Union Pacific employee and injured three train passengers. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times



A Union Pacific maintenance worker who was killed in a collision with a Metrolink train has been identified as Roberto Ramirez, 56, of Visalia.

Ramirez died of multiple traumatic injuries when the pickup truck he was riding in was struck by a Metrolink commuter train east of El Monte on March 20, said Lt. Brian Elias of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Click here to check out a Times interactive database looking at accidents along the Metrolink system through September 2009. The coroner’s office considered the death an accident. Metrolink officials had earlier said there was no evidence that the employee deliberately placed himself in the train’s path. 

The Metrolink tracks at the accident site run parallel to Union Pacific’s freight tracks. Ramirez was responsible for maintaining and inspecting the Union Pacific tracks at the site.

Officials have not disclosed why Ramirez was in the path of the Metrolink train.

— Rong-Gong Lin II

Related: Interactive Times database on accidents and collisions on Metrolink’s system from 1993 to September 2009.

Photo: An investigator examines the site of the crash that killed a Union Pacific employee and injured three train passengers. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times