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Five dead after NYC-bound Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia


BreeddekalbL

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At least five people were killed when a New York City-bound Amtrak train derailed at a junction bend in northeast Philadelphia Tuesday night, officials said. More than 170 passengers were injured, six critically, officials at the scene confirmed. "We're the lucky ones here," a woman at Temple University Hospital told the Daily News after her 29-year-old son, Jake, suffered a fractured rib en route back to New York. “Most people were able to walk off this train, many were transported (to area hospitals)," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said at a press conference. He added that it's unclear whether all passengers and crew are accounted for.

 

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90 minutes in and Amtrak hasn't issued a statement yet, and the anchor on MSNBC is starting to call them out on it...

 

The derailment looks really bad, I see most of the cars are resting on their side and the locomotive is on the ground.

 

At least one of the cars looks to have a pole of some kind piercing into one of the cars... Hopefully these people are taken care of...

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Any guesses as to what led to the derailment? One article I read mentioned that there is a big curve in the area of the derailment

Let's not "guess" the cause. Guessing leads to rumors. Let the investigation play out and we'll know in due time.

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Amtrak has been installing ACSES on the NEC but AFAIK it's not installed on the entire line, but I don't know if it would have helped here or much less if it was installed in this particular area.

 

At least the locomotive is a newer model so I'm sure there's a modern event recorder and we'll find out in detail what happened soon enough...

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Well it's revealed that the train was traveling 100 on a curve rated for 50. 

 

What's interesting to note is the fact that amtrak has ACSES Positive Train Control on much of the NEC - but not on this section of track, or any section shared with SEPTA...

 

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/774/37/Amtrak-Ink-Jan-Feb-2015.pdf

 

Page fifteen details ACSES rollout. 

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(CNN)[breaking news, posted at 5:49 p.m. ET]

The stretch of track where an Amtrak train derailed Tuesday was not equipped with an automated speed control system called positive train control, Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday at a news conference.

 

Breaking news got by CNN 3 hours after I posted it  -_-

 

Here's the engineer in question. Hard to believe he wouldn't be cooperative right?  

 

Edit: yanno what, I'm not posting this guys photo, as his identity is not yet public and There are still too many questions. 

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Amtrak has been installing ACSES on the NEC but AFAIK it's not installed on the entire line, but I don't know if it would have helped here or much less if it was installed in this particular area.

 

At least the locomotive is a newer model so I'm sure there's a modern event recorder and we'll find out in detail what happened soon enough...

PTC(ACSES) is in effect from New Haven to Boston.. Anyone know what other area's have the technology implemented along the NEC? 

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I mean, Obviously that ACS went through some trauma but that windshield looks like it damn well could have been hit by bricks to me...

 

[image]

 

 

What's with the bullet holes in the windshield?

 

 

Earlier poster wrote that kids were throwing bricks at trains.

All of these posts and that pic are making me believe that some dumbass kids who were throwing bricks at the trains played a role in this whole thing. The smashed window is the one that has the engine's controls behind it. Here are my theories....

 

  • Some dumbass kids with nothing better to do (conquestors Philly division, maybe) probably threw a brick at 601 while it was passing through since there was an object thrown at a SEPTA train approximately 3 minutes earlier, it hit the engineer side windshield, the engineer probably thought that he was being shot at (this is North Philly we're talking about), ducked down for cover, and maybe right as he peeped up, saw that the train was going 107 mph right as it hit the curve. 
  • According to Railraod.net forums, I stalk those forums every once in a while, been meaning to create an account so I can post there too, the Sprinters have been having some teething issues as of late. Maybe the brakes gave out or something else went wrong and the engineer probably tried to apply them, but couldn't.

Not jumping to conclusions because we still don't know how this really played out, but I'm just dropping in my theory of what happened here. I know speed was a factor, but it doesn't seem like this was an act of carelessness.

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