They are saying that he was flying at over 100 mph on a curve with a speed limit of 50...

He has lawyered up and is refusing to talk to police.

Another case like the airliner pilot that dove the plane into the ground?

https://news.yahoo.com/amtrak-train...stigation-begins-073410531--finance.html

more like the ferry captain getting a blow job, probably....

My wife rides Amtrak quite often, and we know this route.

The train is quite frequently late.

Exceeding the recommended speed in order to make up time is the most plausible.

didn't they have the stripey hat dude in California that was too busy with phone sex to watch where he was going?

About 4 years ago maybe?

If he was trying to commit suicide then he didn't do a very good job of it.

He's only being smart to clam up & lawyer up. Talking to anyone right now, police especially, would be stupid.

Might be kinda hard to explain 107 mph on a 50 mph curve, too.

Am I too understand that in 2015 the speed of a train is not automated??

Correct.

I hear it's speed was automated. Autopilots are great until they fail. In 2013 an Amtrack disrailed in NYC, it was also going 100 around a 30MPH curve. Co-incidence? I'm thinking 100 is terminal velocity, when that autopilot fails and the engineer is too busy looking at his Iphone bad things happen.

I think he's in deep dew dew!

We're already dealin' with the muzzies, now we have deal with the Germans too!

Damn!! We's gonna be busy......

Mohammed?

At this point it could just as easily be Doofus.

The train had:
1. Older engine, of class being retired mainly because they aren't reliable. Apparently, no "speed minder" equipment, just signals.
2. Zoo Junction north of Philly isn't far from Frankford, maybe 8 miles. 100 is 40 seconds per mile, not much time to have a brain fart or space attack. Or sneak off a text message. Or be distracted by a "fault" indicator.

Some reports have passengers "noticing" a brake application before the pile up. Normal braking and acceleration is almost never noticed by typical riders...that indicates to me the engineer had an "Oh, S$@%" and hit the emergency brakes too late.

Last night they were saying this train had an older version of speed control but today Reuters says this section of track isn't automated yet. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015...t-safety-exclusive-idUSKBN0NY2DW20150513

We should be getting black box info pretty soon.

Expect big Fed to nationalize commuter trains now, wait..

I had no idea that they could run that fast.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...ord-Junction-71-Years-Ago-303557531.html

The steam locomotives could run 100mph on good tracks.

Nailed it.

NTSB also said that they haven't interviewed the engineer yet. He said they are giving the traumatized guy a day or two to get it together, don't you debrief a guy as soon as possible? What a load. That Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers union must be strong.

Because the system that overrides engineer in situations such as this is not mandated by the NTSB.
The reason?
Lobbiest for the train companies have kept the legislation down that would require the installation of the technology.
Profits are spread to shareholders instead of upgrading the train system infrastructure.

I heard that 7 people were killed in the derailment...

has anyone heard if Jesse Jackson's and Al Sharpton's Entourage were on the AmTrak at all???

I just want to make sure they are all right, just in case they were.....

Congress cut lots of funds that were going to Amtrak today as well. Just hours after the derailment.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/amtrak-crash-hits-home-for-lawmakers-who-respond-118880314740.html

Wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Amtrak?

Electing a conservative pres. next year would help privatize Amtrak...

We rode Amtrak to FL from DC last Thanksgiving (with a sleeper car) and my GPS had us routinely 80-100 mph. I've ridden the Acela several times to NY/Boston and seen 120 mph on the legs from Baltimore and Philly and then from Providence to Boston. Most of the rest of the infrastructure is speed limited.

Even it the auto failed, how the he** can you not tell you are going 100 mph?

106 mph in a 50 mph posted curve????? This guy is toast!

Imagine a Greyhound bus going off a curve at over 100 mph.

It's amazing more didn't die.

Privatizing Amtrak will do nothing to help their financial situation. Railroads pay for their infrastructure (right-of-way, track, controllers, systems) while airlines have free infrastructure (air is free) and the Air Traffic control System is reimbursed for only a fraction of the cost.

Freight railroads do not have a system-wide comprehensive schedule to run; they run when the train is full (within limits). A passenger railroad must leave and arrive on schedule within minutes of the scheduled time or get a black eye, regardless of load density

If we need to relieve air traffic in congested corridors, rail is an answer and we need to be willing to pay for it.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that you are for the continuation or expansion of a .gov program.

<insert sarcasm font>

Why should I have to pay for something that I don't use, and does not benefit me? I could care less if there was no Amtrack along with 97% of the people in this country. The people that use it can pay the real cost or needs to go away.

CSX owns the rails, regardless of who's train is on it.

And they want us to ride in automated cars.

Funny how when a truck crashes it is the drivers fault. Period. He will be fined on the spot, for something, and have to go to court to defend himself. But when these things happen they have to investigate and take forever to make a determination. Not saying it is always the engineer, but he does not have to steer and there is not a lot of traffic to watch out for. If anything but a train is on the tracks it is understood that it should not have been there. Not a railroader and I am sure there is a lot I do not understand but JMHO

He can't drive 55.

Was a drug screen done or did this guy leave to sober up?

I'm betting the Engineer was drunk, since he's already lawyered up. Hope I'm wrong, but they said he applied the brakes AFTER the train started in to the curb
at 106 mph

They will know pretty much right away. After any fatality the engineer has to give blood for a tox screen pretty much as soon as they get him off the engine even if it's a road crossing accident.

I'd investigate his political leanings as well.. Home grown perhaps. I see no way that this was an accident.

There is an article out now, fairly informative, that indicates that he's a gay rights activist...so you can pretty well guess where his political sympathies are.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nvestigators-statement-deadly-crash.html

They won't need a court order for his cell records, ntsb probably had them within hours of the crash. Not sure what the max speed for that subdivision is but for most of the country except for certain places on the east coast, with certain trains max speed for passenger trains is 90mph. At 3-5 over the max speed the engines over speed sensor would have set the bakes unless manually cut out. If the engineer put the train in emergency I would guess it was a mistake not a deliberate act. If the conductor did it from back in the train it would make me wonder. That is something the event recorder data will tell them.

Amtrak, ahhhh...yes....another taxpayer funded boondoggle. 2 Billion Dollars a year in Taxpayer subsidies, millions and millions handed out in Taxpayer funded pensions, something like 16 unions making sure the "employees" have zero accountability, a board of directors that are simply political hacks with zero railroad experience, a welfare entitlement program and not really a railroad.

Other than that.....what could go wrong.....

this is not going to end well for Brandon the Engineer and nor should it. The dude either has narcolepsy or he was on drugs.

He remembers driving the train, Goggin said, but "has absolutely no recollection of the incident or anything unusual."

That's his only defense at this point. A medical condition caused it...

Sucks for him that he applied the brakes going into the curve because that is what is going to fook him

Ah, the old Amnesia/Sleepwalking defense. That never works out.

I read that he left the station sixteen minutes behind schedule. He was speeding to make up time. If the speed limit was 50 on that turn, like on a highway the turn probably could be taken in relative safety at 70 or 75 mph and in a pinch, it probably has been taken at 90 mph fairly regularly.

He just screwed up and was going too fast and then panicked. There was a retired Amtrak conductor on the radio last night who said that the train would have made that turn at 106 mph without too much problem except that he panicked and hit the emergency brakes. The brakes work from front to rear with the front cars slowing down first. Hitting the emergency brakes going that fast into a turn like that made all the back cars pile onto the front cars that had already slowed down first and caused the derailment.

It is like driving a car, the worst thing you can do is panic and lock up the breaks going into a turn.

Got the NY stripey hat mf'er off his schtick.

"Undiagnosed sleep apnea precipitating a debilitating fatigue" or some such bullshit got him off killing those four folks about 3 years ago.

Hmmm....just possibly American technology needs to put its' pride in the back pocket and seek information from abroad!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIwbrZ4knpg

There are folks in NY that I count as family, but overall, some very strange sheet seems to happen up there.

Of course not. They don't associate with the worker peasants on smelly, noisy trains. They fly in their personal Gulf Stream and Lear jets.

L.W.

Would you get on a train knowing this guy was anywhere near the controls?

Thinking he may be seeing a lot more of his alter ego

Isn't that Pajama Boy wearing a funny looking hat??

L.W.

No railroad curve is good for double the speed, even with relatively light passenger equipment. Maybe it would hold at +25ish. Nobody regularly takes curves or violates max speeds, especially not by more than 10mph over max speed. FRA takes their card for 30 days first offense and a couple more times and card can be gone for years.

ridin that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed.

Engineer fuct up, if he was high on cocaine he be going 2 jail.

Maybe, but nobody, unless he was having some sort of medical emergency suddenly decides to go 106 mph into a curve that is rated for 50 mph. He had been taking that curve way over the posted speed limit for a long time. Maybe the limit on that curve was artificially low or maybe he was a daredevil. Who knows? But you don't suddenly go from 50 or 60 mph to 106 mph. More likely he was going from 80 or 85 mph to a moment's inattention and being further down the track than he thought, and then entering it at 106 mph.

I get what you are saying, but that is what is SUPPOSED to happen. It obviously wasn't happening here because you don't go from 50 mph to 106 mph.

At a minimum they need to charge him with DWHUA.

Driving With Head Up Ass.

Death count up to 8 now.

From my railroad experience when the train goes into emergency, all cars brakes go on pretty much simultaneously, even on a train a mile long. The engine pumps the brakes off, ON is the default position once the air is pumped up. Air pressure pumps the brakes off, not on as some believe. Each car has an air tank to hold the air pressure that holds the brakes off.

It's easier to understand than it is to explain..

Old engines of my time had a dead man pedal but could be defeated with a case 50 cent piece wedged in to keep it down. If your foot slipped off, the train would go into emergency braking. Also if an air hose came uncoupled or if it burst, or the train broke a knuckle or draw head and separated, the train would go into emergency braking.

Time was there was a speed recorder on the engines. These were checked and engineers were subject to be fired for a period of time, if a speed violation occurred. My route between Savannah and Macon, Southern Train 135-136, was max 49 MPH on a freight train. We were in the dark with no electronic signals or tracking.

I'm sure things have changed since then but not much.

And as mentioned they own very little or none of the rails they run on. Now how much does that save them?

Dude fuct up. These aren't cars, you don't just take curves at way over speed on a regular basis if ever "because you know they are good for it". He may have gotten away with it a few times but if he made it a regular practice he would not have been working because the FRA would have pulled his card. I'm not sure what this idiot was doing, whether he was trying to kill himself and crash the train then chickened out at the last minute and tried to slow down or if he somehow defeated the crew alerter and fell asleep then woke up and threw the brakes on to late. Being able go go over 90mph is a big deal. Only very few trains on certain tracks, with certain locomotives can do it. If his train didn't qualify to do that speed he would have had to disable an over speed device that would have applied the brakes at +/- 94mph. I would like to know the max passenger speed for the subdivision he was operating on. Bottom line tho this guy screwed up in a big way.

Just saw the NTSB spokesman repeating the same BS. They're giving him a few more days before his interview because he's "traumatized". In my experience when an operator is involved in a screwup or even a close call they don't get the kid glove treatment for sure. He is a weird looking guy, I wonder if his lawyer is threatening and demanding special PC treatment because he's a special...person, being ginger and all.

That NTSB spokesman is a weird looking little bastage too.

I think the Corridor is Class 6 track, good enough in cross-level and integrity for 110. The rail is 142 pound in many places, concrete ties, inspected for geometry at least weekly if not daily. Amtrak has a special geometry car that is out there all the time on secondary trains. It is objectively in the best shape it has ever, ever been, very impressive.
ACELA is good for 125 and 150 under special rules, class 7 and 8, but only Acela.
Amtrak owns the Corridor, the old Michigan Central (at least big parts) and from Philly to Lancaster, those were taken from Penn Central upon the formation of Conrail.
As for the brakes -- no, these are electropneumatic systems with no dwell or delay from front to back. The brakes went on at the same time, but too late to be of much effect. It is a matter of physics that the faster you go, the less effective the brakes happen to be.
This guy spaced out big time (at 100 mph, 7 miles go by real fast) and blew his chance to set his air. Unlike the thousands and thousands of other engineers who have made it around the Frankford Junction curve safely in the last 80 years, this numbskull screwed the pooch. And killed eight people, and hurt a lot more, and ruined millions of equipment Amtrak really didn't need to write off.
I vote jail.

Do passenger trains of this type not have a co-pilot like planes do?

Why the heck not? It's the same concept.

The ones that run longer distances like trains 3&4 have an asst engineer in the cab with the engineer. Not sure about the commuter trains.

They already have the download from the event recorder and know every thing he did from the moment he took the controls. He will have to explain why he did not slow for the curve. He can have as much time as he wants, there is no good reason short of a massive heart attack which it doesn't look like he had.

The old Sammy Hagar made me do it defense...

Where you been, Brother Bart ? Glad to see you posting.

Austin and fighting with the VA.

Dayom! That's no fun at all!

figured you were romancing ol' Renee!

I think the reason for it is his gay activism and that he putts from the ruff. Not sure why the media hasn't gone after that facet.

He could make 1000 posts about gay activism and not a word heard from the press. If he made 1 pro Tea Party post he'd be crucified.

NTSB rep says train accelerated in last minute.........

http://news.yahoo.com/amtrak-train-deadly-wreck-speeding-why-061551289--finance.html

SBH's link say's the engineer has a lifetime obsession with going in and out of tunnels in groups. Personally I like feeling my way around peaked mountains.

Never let a good tragedy go to waste.

All of the bodies hadn't even been recovered yet and the Democrats were already screaming for us to throw money at it and called for more spending on infrastructure even though it was probably human error. All of this before we even know the cause. Currently we're spending a billion dollars a year on Amtrak.

We've seen how well they manage spending. What the heck happened to the $800 Billion Stimulus Package that didn't stimulate. Oh yea, it went to the unions and then kicked back to the DNC.

They will find he was surfin the interwebs right before the crash.

When this sucker hits 88 mph, you're gonna see some serious schitt.

If he is a WHITE guy then he is in very big trouble.

"They won't need a court order for his cell records, ntsb probably had them within hours of the crash."

A search warrant is required for cell phone records these days. They just got a search warrant yesterday (5/14). I believe they will find he was texting when he should have been driving the train. Texting is very addictive I found out this last December when my old flip phone crashed and I traded it in for a "smart" phone. When I'm driving I put my cell phone out of reach.