http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1264325.html

RT refuses to release probe in worker's death
By Tony Bizjak - tbizjak@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, September 25, 2008

Two months after a Sacramento Regional Transit maintenance worker was killed by a light-rail train, the cause remains a mystery to the employee's frustrated widow.

Forty-year-old Troy Schafer was walking on the tracks in North Sacramento, grease gun in hand, lubricating rails when the train struck him from behind.

Regional Transit investigated the fatality – including conducting a re-enactment – but officials refuse to disclose what they say are preliminary findings.

"We're not willing to release it yet," RT chief operating officer Mark Lonergan said this week.

RT officials say they first want to see what the California Public Utilities Commission determines in its own assessment of the incident. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration is conducting a separate investigation.

The Bee has filed a Public Records Act request for RT's crash report.

Donna Schafer said agency officials were vague when they spoke to her this week about her husband's death.

She said she has seen the report, but said it doesn't have much detail, and does not contain a conclusion on what caused the crash. It says the operator didn't see her husband, she said, but doesn't say why.

"I'm not satisfied that they don't know," she said. "I need to know."

Last week, a state Public Utilities official said a cell phone was "implicated" in the fatal incident.

RT officials disputed that, saying their investigation showed the light-rail operator had used her cell earlier that day – against RT policy – but they have no evidence she was using it when the train hit Schafer.

The comment by PUC official Richard Clark was made in a brief reference to the Sacramento incident during a commission hearing on cell phone use by transit operators after this month's Los Angeles commuter train crash.

PUC officials declined to elaborate on the comment, but PUC spokesman Andrew Kotch said Clark's use of the word "implicated" does not mean the PUC has determined cell phone use caused the incident.

RT Board chair Roberta MacGlashan, a Sacramento County supervisor, referred questions to RT staff, but said she isn't concerned about the lack of conclusion at this point.

"I think it's more important that it be thorough than it be fast," she said.

Schafer, a five-year RT employee, was killed July 24 as he greased the rails on a turn, about 260 feet from the Watt/I-80 West station.

Schafer, a father of two boys, ages 10 and 11, was a youth baseball coach and an avid hunter. He had invented an elongated grease gun that allowed him to do his job in a more upright position, rather than squatting, his wife said.

He had his back to an approaching train, RT operating official Lonergan said.

"We don't know if he heard or saw the train," Lonergan said.

The operator, who has been put on leave, told RT investigators she did not see Schafer, according to Lonergan.

Lonergan declined to say whether the operator said she was looking ahead or looking elsewhere.

Toxicology tests determined no drugs or alcohol were involved, Lonergan said. A coroner's autopsy determined Schafer had no drugs or alcohol in his system.

Light-rail operators had been informed at the beginning of their shifts via radio advisory of locations where minor maintenance was occurring, officials said.

Lonergan said operators are not required to confirm receiving advisories. He said the agency is reviewing maintenance and advisory rules as a result of the crash.

PUC officials said they may finish their review in the coming days. Cal-OSHA officials said their investigations often last four months.

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Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.