Insider: BART training for strike when 2 killed

BART personnel confer on Sunday, October 20, 2013, before removing a train that was involved in a fatal collision the previous day. Investigators from the NTSB have on Sunday, October 20, 2013, taken over the investigation into the Saturday's fatal BART train accident in Walnut Creek, Calif. less BART personnel confer on Sunday, October 20, 2013, before removing a train that was involved in a fatal collision the previous day. Investigators from the NTSB have on Sunday, October 20, 2013, taken over the ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Insider: BART training for strike when 2 killed 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

An informed transit insider tells us that the BART train that struck and killed two workers on the tracks near the Walnut Creek station on Saturday was on a strike-related training run at the time of the accident.

"They were practicing training people how to operate and have the skills in the event of an extended strike," said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record.

The source, however, said BART's official description - that the train was on a routine maintenance run at the time - may also be true. The source was referring to a statement by Paul Oversier, BART's assistant general manager, that the train was returning to Concord after hauling two cars that had been defaced with graffiti to the maintenance yard in Richmond.

Reached Sunday afternoon, Oversier declined to comment, saying the accident is now under review by the National Transportation Safety Board, and everyone "is under direct orders not to discuss the incident."

"That's standard practice," Oversier said. "There's an absolute gag order."

BART board President Tom Radulovich also declined to comment, citing the NTSB investigation.

BART union representatives meanwhile were awaiting further information, but they speculated off the record that BART was training its managers how to control the trains should they have to step in to provide skeletal service between San Francisco and the East Bay if the strike is protracted.

There are reports that as many as a half-dozen people were aboard the train at the time of the accident, though neither their names nor positions have been disclosed. However, according to our source, the driver at the time of the accident was a veteran trainer whose job was hiring operators.

But officials say the train was being run "in automatic mode under computer control" at the time of the accident.

PUC 'culture' adjuster: After taking a ton of flak over its handling of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. before the San Bruno disaster, the California Public Utilities Commission plans to pay an outside consultant $7 million for a "culture" makeover to make the agency more safety-conscious.

The idea is to "integrate safety into all aspects of our work and that of the utilities," said Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the commission.

The "Strategic Transformational Campaign Project" is the handiwork of Jack Hagan, the pistol-packing brigadier general reservist brought in to shape up the utility watchdog's safety division after a PG&E gas pipe exploded in San Bruno in 2010, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes.

Critics say the commission historically has been more interested in rate debates than enforcing safety in the utilities it regulates.

In blaming PG&E's problem-riddled gas system for the San Bruno disaster, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, Deborah Hersman, took a swipe at "a lax system of oversight and regulatory agencies that placed a blind trust in operators, to the detriment of public safety."

So now, according to the job specs, the commission is looking for someone to provide training and guidance "related to culture change ... to transform the CPUC into the benchmark regulatory agency of safety and accountability."

"Unbelievable," said Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose.

"They're outsourcing their core mission," she said. "It's an outrage and just another example of the failed leadership at the PUC."

State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, whose district includes the devastated San Bruno neighborhood, agreed that replacing the commission's brass would be the quickest way to "culture change."

"It all filters down," Hill said.

A confidential survey that the commission ordered up last year found that staffers and directors believed the agency had failed to make public safety a top priority, with some blaming an overly cozy relationship with the state's utility giants.

"If we were enforcing the rules, we would not have to worry about a safety culture," one person told interviewers.

Commission spokeswoman Prosper says the $7 million makeover is in response to recommendations by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Legislature.

But apparently not everyone at the utilities commission was fully up to speed on the contract. No sooner did we start asking questions about the contract than Prosper alerted us Friday that officials were slowing down the bid process to make sure the five-member commission that runs the PUC is "intimately involved."

Crash clues: Turns out airplanes aren't the only things with "black boxes" that can be analyzed after crashes - the devices are also found in the model of the Mercedes-Benz SUV that a woman drove at high speed down San Francisco's Pine Street before slamming into a minivan and killing a teenage boy.

Investigators have recovered the Mercedes black box in hopes of learning how fast Jennie Zhu was driving the morning of Sept. 27 and whether she put on the brakes before crashing into the minivan at Pine and Gough streets, killing 16-year-old Kevin San, a student at Lincoln High.

The black box may also have recorded any mechanical problems with the Mercedes before the crash, which has left Kevin's mother, postal carrier Tina Chew, clinging to life in a coma at San Francisco General Hospital.

Zhu, 58, was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter but has not been charged. She is free on $300,200 bail.

Her attorney, Alfred Vea Jr., said Zhu recalls almost nothing from the incident before finding herself "on her knees in the intersection."

"She doesn't know how she got out of the car," Vea said.

The last thing she remembers was dropping her husband off at work a few minutes earlier, said Vea, adding that Zhu hadn't been drinking or taking medication.

"She doesn't even have a parking ticket," he said. "This is a big surprise to everybody, but mostly to her."

Vea said his client may have suffered "some kind of seizure." He's awaiting hospital test results that might confirm it.

Police, meantime, are waiting for results from a blood test that could show whether Zhu had drugs or alcohol in her system.

Parting shot: Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, never got a concession call from Pete Stark when he pulled the upset of the year last November and defeated the longtime congressman from the East Bay.

Well, consider this Stark's message to Swalwell: Nestled among his final campaign expenditures is a $2,000 contribution to state Sen. Ellen Corbett, who is running against Swalwell.

Stark saved the big bucks, however, for his going-away party in D.C. - that bill came in at $3,772.