Cellphone usage is already against the rules for Metrolink engineers.

My point was that Metrolink is laying the blame on the engineer without benefit of an investigation. Doesn't matter who came forward, who posted to what blog or who's picture is posted anywhere. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that the brain trust at the MTA can state with certainty that it was the engineer's fault this soon after the accident. Yet that's what they've already done. The how and the why should come AFTER the investigation, wouldn't you agree?

The engineer is a contracted worker, by blaming him, and by extension, the company that employs him, the MTA is most likely simply laying the groundwork for a legal defense against the inevitable lawsuits that will be filed. Unlike them, I don't know that to be the case so I won't state it as a fact.

Even if the engineer ends up being the guy who make an awful mistake, hell even if he is proven to be the worst engineer in train operating history, he deserves the absolute minimum of presumed innocence before being publicly pilloried by a mouthpiece from the MTA.

Kudos to all the rescuers. That must have been a horrible event to witness.

John E