AKIPRESS.COM - A Los Angeles-bound commuter train slammed into a tractor-trailer apparently stuck on the tracks in a Southern California city before dawn on Tuesday, injuring 50 people in a fiery crash, four of them critically.

The truck driver, who was not hurt, left the scene of the destruction in Oxnard on foot and was found walking and talking on a cell phone in "some sort of distress" more than 1.6 miles (2.6 km) away, Assistant Police Chief Jason Benites told Reuters.

Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, 54, was taken into custody on felony hit-and-run charges for leaving the scene of the accident, Benites said.

While no one was killed, the force of the impact overturned three double-decker Metrolink rail cars and derailed two others, ripped the truck apart and left burned chunks and twisted wreckage still smoldering hours later.

Benites said it appeared that the truck driver, who was towing a trailer full of welding equipment, had taken a wrong turn in the pre-dawn darkness and ended up on the tracks, where the rig became stuck as the train approached at 79 miles per hour (127 km per hour).

Benites declined to say what led police to arrest Sanchez-Ramirez, other than he had left the scene of the accident. He said the driver had undergone unspecified tests at a hospital and that investigators were looking into the possibility that drugs or alcohol were involved in the crash.

"I believe it is safe to say it was not a deliberate act," Benites said.

But in a move that may have helped avert a more catastrophic accident, the locomotive used an emergency braking system moments before impact, and the rail cars had safety features that helped absorb the energy of the crash, Metrolink spokesman Jeff Lustgarten said.

"I think we can safely say that the technology worked. It definitely minimized the impact. It would have been a very serious collision. It would have been much worse without it,” Lustgarten said.