Veolia Transportation Inc. is the company that hired Robert Sanchez, the Metrolink engineer on duty at the time of the Metrolink crash September 12th. Sanchez is being blamed for the accident because he did not apply the train brakes even after passing three warning signals.
Two workers have filed a class-action lawsuit against Veolia Transportation claiming that they did not give their employees sufficient breaks, overtime, and other benefits.
Federal investigators are looking into whether engineer fatigue was a factor in the deadly crash that killed 25 including the engineer.
Sanchez was in the middle of a 10 ½ hour work shift when he ran the red light. Working consecutive long hour shifts was a routine for Sanchez. The day of the crash, Sanchez was at work by 6am.
He had 4 ½ hours before his next break, so used that time to take a nap. He was back at work by 2pm which was 2 ½ hours before the train crash.
Kitty Higgins, a member of the NTSB Board says that worker’s fatigue is always a concern for the NTSB “but whether that played a role in the accident is much too early to say.”
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