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Metrolink recently announced plans to install inward-facing video cameras onboard all locomotives and lead passenger cars.

The agency will spend $1 million to purchase and install 218 cameras and recorders. Metrolink expects to begin installing the cameras onboard 52 locomotives in summer, and take delivery of 57 new, camera-equipped passenger cars in 2010.

The cameras will serve as "a significant deterrent" to the "type of activity revealed during a National Transportation Safety Board hearing," Metrolink officials said in a prepared statement. On September 12, 2008, a Metrolink commuter train collided with a Union Pacific Railroad train in Chatsworth, Calif., causing 25 fatalities and 138 injuries. The accident allegedly was caused by a Metrolink engineer who failed to stop at a red signal. He had been sending text messages on his cell phone just minutes before the accident occurred, the NTSB recently determined.