Railworks America

Just saw on FOX; what a really bad accident.

Inaugural run of a new high speed rail service - something horrible has gone wrong.

From the overheads, the lead engine is down on the I-5 south of the bridge, and the trailing engine (Amtrak 181) is on the tracks above. It appears to me the lead engine struck something and left the rails just prior to entering the turn for the bridge and carried at least 3 cars off to the right with one’s end still sticking out and the rest according folded up with the next car going over then under the bridge, carrying and others over the side as well as they came to a stop.

The one down on the highway looks like a brand new Siemens SC-44 Charger. I don’t know which number, but there are a few shots of the train during December testing in Tacoma over at Rail Pictures.

A picture of 1402, the unit on the ground in WA:

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/638629/

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/612035/

Very scary for me. Wasn't on the train but I was the very last paying customer to use the old Tacoma Station last night at 10:00PM. Worst wreck I have seen in all my 19 years here!

An Update on my end: It turns out the train that derailed was the same train set I rode about 9 HOURS before the wreck occurred. I found the car I rode among the wreckage pictures.

I have circled the car I rode in orange:

WSJ is reporting that the train was going 80 in a 30. The screams for PTC will erupt again before the sun sets today. Of course the idea of having a $500 Garmin with a loud warning sound when approaching a speed reduction will never occur to the people who control this. We can have self driving cars but seem to think we need a billion dollar system to control speed on a vehicle that must stay in it's own lane. Or am I making this too simple?

buzz456 wrote:WSJ is reporting that the train was going 80 in a 30. The screams for PTC will erupt again before the sun sets today. Of course the idea of having a $500 Garmin with a loud warning sound when approaching a speed reduction will never occur to the people who control this. We can have self driving cars but seem to think we need a billion dollar system to control speed on a vehicle that must stay in it's own lane. Or am I making this too simple?

The train, track, and employees were all equipped and trained on i-ETMS, but Amtrak doesn't have a working Back office system for it to communicate with. A complete failure on part by upper management to not make implementing it a financial priority after the last two large incidents that could have been prevented by it.

Actually, let me follow that up. The biggest failure of all is that Daddy Goberment made a huge stink about everyone, especially freight carriers being the problem and that they need PTC, all while it's been Passenger services that need it the most and they can't even make their own passenger service commit to making it work on all systems. Especially after 2 deadly incidents.

buzz456 wrote:WSJ is reporting that the train was going 80 in a 30. The screams for PTC will erupt again before the sun sets today. Of course the idea of having a $500 Garmin with a loud warning sound when approaching a speed reduction will never occur to the people who control this. We can have self driving cars but seem to think we need a billion dollar system to control speed on a vehicle that must stay in it's own lane. Or am I making this too simple?

I think you're just making sense here. I'm sure it would take years of study to see if the Garmin would work, but why not?

There's been no mention of speedboards along the route. If I'm correct, regarding both the Amtrak wreck in Philadelphia and the Metro North Wreck in the Bronx, there were no speedboards. My understanding is the Metro North engineers are required to know the speed by territory. Why? Even with cab signals, why can't there be speedboards? Or if taken to the next level, how about green signs similar to highway signs showing a speed reduction is coming?

Rob

There were speed boards both at the point of the speed reduction and two miles before it.

katyusha454 wrote:There were speed boards both at the point of the speed reduction and two miles before it.

Thanks for the clarification. It seems as if the crew was unfamiliar with the route, given the needed fifty mile per hour speed reduction.

I wonder how far in advance the engineer can see where the track curves?

Rob

If he was unfamiliar with the route perhaps he should not have been in charge of hundreds of people's lives?