At least 50 people were hurt, some of them in critical condition, when a commuter train on its way to Los Angeles crashed into a delivery truck that stopped on the tracks in Oxnard, Southern California on Tuesday.

While no one died, the sheer force of the collision shredded the truck and left a heap of twisted wreckage still on fire hours later.

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Police said the truck driver apparently took wrong turn and ended up on the train tracks, where the vehicle got stuck as the train was coming at a speedy 79 miles per hour.

But what may have kept the incident from turning into a disaster is the use of emergency braking system seconds before the collision.

The train cars had a safety system that helped ease the impact of the crash, a spokesman for Metrolink, Jeff Lustgarten, said.

The driver of the truck, who left the scene on foot unscathed, was found disoriented about a mile or two away, police said.

Authorities did not arrest the 54-year-old driver from Arizona but investigators have yet to determine if there was any crime in the 5:45 AM wreck, which sent three double-decker Metrolink rail cars upside down.

Two others were thrown out of the tracks but they remained upright.

Emergency responders said of the 50 people injured in the incident, 28 of them were being treated at hospitals.

One of the most seriously hurt was the train's operator, who was being treated in the intensive care unit at Ventura County Medical Center.

The operator, whose name was withheld, sustained significant chest injuries that affected his lungs and heart but he was able to talk with doctors.

A board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, Robert Sumwalt, said investigators would look at the train's recorders to determine if bells and crossing arms were properly functioning.

The incident happened where the Metrolink rail crossed packed Rice Avenue in Oxnard, a road passed by a steady stream of big rigs and farm trucks.

The wreck led to big delays in Metrolink lines across Ventura County, leaving commuters no choice but to pack in buses.

The town of Oxnard is rich coastal city of about 200,000 people, some 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles. 

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