Eighteen local residents came to a consensus Tuesday on the preferred location and design of a memorial to honor the victims of the Sept. 12 Metrolink train crash.

The group, some of whom were friends and family of the deceased, suggested the memorial be located at the southeast corner of the Simi Valley train station and include a sculpture made of basalt columns surrounded by park benches and a meandering walkway.

Diane Adair, whose father, Alan Buckley, 59, was one of 10 Simi Valley residents killed in the collision, said she liked the conceptual design.

"The simpler, the better," said Adair, who attended the meeting with her mother, Tish Buckley.

The gathering at the senior center was the city's second chance to collect community input on the construction of a permanent memorial to the victims.

The first public workshop was held in November, two months after a Metrolink passenger train bound for Simi Valley and Moorpark collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth. The crash left 25 dead and more than 135 people injured.

During the first workshop, residents chose the Simi Valley train station as the appropriate location for the memorial, which they said should not be designed like a cemetery but instead use walkways, plaques and benches to inspire somber reflection.

On Tuesday, senior management analyst Brian Chong showed the group a series of conceptual designs, created by city staff after the first meeting, and three possible venues at the train station.

Those who spoke agreed that the best site for a memorial would be a landscaped area at the southeast corner of the station, which is the same spot that was used for the community observance held in September.

Of the options presented by the city, this location provided the largest space to work with and best balanced the community members' dual desires of having a quiet place to reflect that is still visible and easily accessible from the platform, Chong said.

Simi resident Wayne Evans was in favor of setting the memorial somewhat away from the platform so that it would not be obvious to tourists or business people who use the train.

"I think the advantage of that is it's not too obtrusive, it doesn't call attention," Evans said. "But those of us who were affected, the families who were affected, will know that it is there."

Colleen Janssen, marketing and community outreach specialist for Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, said she liked the idea of making the memorial visible to riders on the platform.

"People will be more likely to use it if it is closer to the tracks," she said.

Simi resident Cheryl Santor said that she didn't find it a problem to have the memorial visible to people coming and going on the train.

"We're all aware on the train every day who's not there, and we still talk about people who are missing and when they are coming back," Santor said after the meeting. "It's part of your life in a commuting environment, so I don't think it is going to be a detriment to train ridership or people seeing it."

After viewing a number of photographs illustrating ideas for a memorial structure, some in attendance said that they felt an emotional reaction to a design concept featuring columns made of basalt, a gray or black finegrained igneous rock.

"That touched me," Evans said. "I liked it right away. I would be drawn to it."

Santor, who was a passenger on Metrolink 111 and is still recovering from her injuries, said that the modern sculpture seemed to symbolize those who were lost.

"The columns could represent forms of bodies, because they are tall and angular," she said.

The design has practical benefits as well, Janssen said.

"You want to make something that is low enough maintenance so that it always looks nice," she said.

Addressing concerns of vandalism, Chong said basalt columns would be difficult to deface and tend not to be attractive canvases for graffiti.

As suggested by the group, a plaque explaining the reason for the memorial would accompany the basalt columns. Most of the residents seemed to agree that all the victims should be named in some way on the memorial, either on a boulder plaque or on bricks lining a memorial walkway.

"I think that everybody should be noted for their loss. So you can go there and say a prayer and see the person's name," Buckley said. "It's a little bit more meaningful."

Benches, possibly shaded by lattice structures, would surround the memorial to give visitors a place to sit and remember.

Assistant city manager Laura Behjan said the city had not yet decided if it would hold more community outreach meetings.

"I think what we are going to do is take back the information we gathered (Tuesday) night and see where that leads us," she said. "We got a lot of very good information . . . so we may be at a point where we could start putting together a design and making recommendations to the council."

In response to the group's request to unveil the memorial on the one-year anniversary of the crash, Behjan said it is feasible to have the memorial constructed by September.

"I think we have adequate time to do that and plan," she said.

The city has not yet determined a cost estimate for the memorial or discussed the various funding sources available. However, Behjan said community fundraisers could be a possibility and that city staff is open to pursuing a sponsorship from Metrolink.

"We need to further flesh out this concept that was talked about last night, get a sense of how much that would cost and figure out ways of pulling funding together for it," she said. "We don't really know yet what we are talking about in terms of cost."