Gary Matloff has seen a lot in his 20-plus years in Simi Valley, but he has never lived through a week like this past one, as this city of 126,000 people tried to make sense of the Metrolink crash that killed 25 people.

Ten of them were from Simi Valley, which lost more than any other city.

"What happened last week is a tragedy that's beyond comprehension," said Matloff as he stood at the Simi Valley Metrolink station on Friday to remember the dead and honor the more than 130 people injured in the Sept. 12 crash.

Matloff was there with the Kiwanis Club of Simi Valley, whose members handed out black and green ribbons, black to mourn the dead and green "to hope for the speedy recovery" of those injured when a commuter train and a freight train collided head-on.

"We wish we didn't have to be here today," Kurt Fredrickson, a chaplain for Simi Valley police and a local pastor, told the crowd of several hundred gathered on a grassy field for the memorial ceremony. "But our sense of tragedy" and sympathy for those who lost their lives "compels us to be here."

The faces of many in the crowd were heavy with sorrow, their eyes swollen and red. "It is in times like this that we realize just how fragile life is," he told them.

As Fredrickson spoke, an Amtrak train slowly made its way past the station. The train's engineer threw crimson rose petals out the window in the direction of the crowd.

The crash happened in Chatsworth, where mourners gathered Friday night for a candlelight vigil at the Metrolink station.

In Simi Valley, representatives from charitable and service organizations set up tables at the train station, ready to offer help and advice to those in need. The organizations included the American Red Cross' Ventura County chapter, Ventura County Crisis Counselors, Simi Valley Community Foundation-Metrolink Victims and United Blood Services.

"Those of you who were on that train carry a burden," Fredrickson told the mourners. "You may not be sleeping or eating" and might be racked with guilt for having survived the crash, while others died, he said.

Fredrickson urged them to seek help. "Don't keep those feelings inside," he said, "or they will eat you up."

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, who's lived in Simi for more than 40 years and was the city's first mayor, said he's visited cities across the nation. But none, he said, have the capacity to come together in a time of need "like Simi Valley."

The faces of some of the dead looked out from photographs placed at makeshift memorials at the train station by family members.

They included Alan Buckley, 59, a mechanic who worked for more than 30 years for the city of Burbank. As with many of the dead, Buckley was riding in the first passenger car, the one that suffered the most damage in the collision.

Buckley's son Jeff stood next to his father's picture. White carnations were placed in vases around his father's photograph.

A number of people came up to Jeff Buckley to tell them how sorry they were about his father's untimely death.

Just a week before, Jeff Buckley had stood next to the crash site with a crowd of reporters who had gathered there for a news conference with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials in the hours immediately after the collision.

Buckley knew his father had been on the train and was desperately looking for him. About 4 a.m. the following morning, Buckley's wife, Angela, called to tell him that his father had been found dead on the train.

"He was an incredible person, and we miss him terribly," Buckley told a well-wisher.

At the Chatsworth vigil, hundreds of mourners gathered in the parking lot. They talked of how they would never forget what happened the day of the crash.

"Everyone will remember where you were and what you were doing," said the Rev. Dave Cox of the Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth, which is close to the crash site.

The vigil was organized by two teens from Chatsworth. "We just wanted to bring the community together and offer support to people who are really, really hurting," said one of the organizers, Kristen Kiertzner, 17.

— Staff staff writer Tom Kisken contributed to this report.