Amtrak Autotrain Derailment

Here is the latest:

A popular Amtrak train carrying tourists and their cars on a nonstop journey to Washington hurtled off the tracks Thursday in rural northern Florida, killing six people and injuring dozens.

The Auto Train, with 468 people aboard, knocked down pine trees when 14 of the 16 passenger cars derailed. Firefighters climbed ladders to reach windows on overturned cars and helped people escape. A makeshift triage center was set up at the site.

At least six people were killed, said Bill Leeper, spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol.

''We just started hurtling and left the track and the next thing we knew, we were bouncing off the walls,'' said Bernie Morgan, traveling from Naples to Doylestown, Pa.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately known, but investigators have not found any cars or vehicles on the track, Putnam County sheriff's Capt. Keith Riddick said. The tracks were inspected eight hours earlier, and were in good condition, the rail owner said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending investigators to the scene.

The train is favored by families traveling to Florida's theme parks and beaches from Northeast and mid-Atlantic cities. Thursday's train left Sanford after 4 p.m. under clear skies and derailed in a rural area 44 miles from the station. Amtrak said the train carried 440 passengers and 28 crew members.

''Suddenly you could feel the brakes scraping,'' said David Sheldon, 71, who was traveling from Boca Raton.

He said it took about 30 seconds for the train to come to stop.

''It seemed like forever,'' he said.

Robert Dodd Sr., 74, of Willingboro, N.J., said he and his wife were sitting down to dinner when the train derailed.

''The girl said, 'Do you want white or red wine?''' Dodd said at the triage center. ''At first I said, 'White, no give me red' and that's the last thing I remember.''

His wife, Betty, lay on a backboard with a brace around her neck and a cut on her elbow.

Rev. Lamar Taylor, the Volusia County sheriff's chaplain, walked from stretcher to stretcher, comforting victims.

''This is as bad as I've seen,'' Taylor said.

Amtrak sent response teams to the crash site, and the American Red Cross also sent teams to the station in Lorton, Va., where the train had been scheduled to arrive Friday morning.

Three passengers were flown by helicopter to Shands Hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Dr. Kevin Ferguson said. One person was in critical condition and the other two were in serious condition, he said.

Five men and four women were in serious condition at Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach, spokeswoman Kate Holcomb said.

Twenty-six people with minor injuries were being examined at Memorial Hospital-Peninsula in Ormond Beach, spokeswoman Desiree Paradis said.

The Auto Train consisted of 2 engines, 16 passenger cars and 23 auto racks, Amtrak said.

The tracks are owned, operated and maintained by CSX Corp. Spokeswoman Jane Covington said the tracks were inspected about eight hours before the crash and were in good condition.

The tracks are part of a CSX line normally used by 28 trains in a 24-hour period. Another Amtrak train and five to seven freight trains are being rerouted to avoid the area, she said.

In 1998, an Auto Train hit an empty car on tracks at a crossing in Jarratt, a rural town in southern Virginia. The front wheels of the lead engine derailed, but it remained upright. There were no injuries.

 

I also posted this in the rail news forum, but figured it could go here too:

Engineer tried to stop train

 

Two Amtrak engineers and a conductor all hit the emergency brakes just seconds before a deadly train derailment that left four people dead and more than 150 injured, investigators said Saturday.

The lead engineer of the Amtrak Auto Train told the National Transportation Safety Board that he saw a disjointed track about an hour into a trip from Sanford to Lorton, Va., and slammed on the engine's brake.

Moments later, a backup engineer in the locomotive cab and a conductor two cars back felt the train hit the disjointed track and switched on emergency brakes as well, NTSB board member George Black said Saturday.

The NTSB hasn't said if its investigators have been able to verify if the track was misaligned.

The train's two engines and first two cars stayed on the tracks, but more than half of the Auto Train's 40 cars derailed Thursday afternoon, throwing passengers to the floor and against walls. The train was going 56 mph in a 60 mph zone at the time, investigators said.

The four people killed - all vacationers and snowbirds returning to the North from Florida - were identified as Frank Alfredo, 67, of Waccabuc, N.Y.; Joan DiStefano, 65, of Staten Island, N.Y.; and Joseph and Marjorie Wright, of Toronto.

DiStefano's son, Robert, reached at the family's home Saturday, declined to offer any details about his mother. The family of Joseph and Marjorie Wright has gone to Florida, Canada Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman Martine Lagace said Saturday. The family requested that no more information be released.

The train's lead engineer had 35 years of experience and was trained on several different locomotives, Black said.

``I think we would call him well-qualified,'' Black said.

The tracks had been visually inspected eight hours before the derailment and had been in good condition, according to CSX, the freight railroad that owns the track.

Four other trains had passed over the area just before the wreck, including a southbound train carrying coal. A preliminary examination of the coal train and another train showed no problems, but investigators wanted to perform another inspection on the coal train, which passed only six to eight minutes earlier at 35 mph.

It is not uncommon for rails to expand in the Florida heat, but Black said the temperature, 81 degrees, did not appear to be a factor. Misalignments can also be caused by damage done by a previous train.

CSX spokeswoman Jane Covington didn't immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday.

An audit by federal inspectors two years ago raised questions about the effectiveness of CSX's track inspection, maintenance and track construction programs. The Federal Railroad Administration faulted CSX for failing to make track repairs quickly and said several track-related derailments could have been prevented with better inspections and maintenance.

Saturday's Auto Train was bound for Washington with 418 passengers and 34 crew members, as well as 200 automobiles stacked in 23 specially designed cars, when it derailed.

Amtrak officials hoped to have the Auto Train running again by Monday or Tuesday, spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said Saturday. Workers in hard hats and reflective vests used cranes Saturday to clear away the remaining rail cars.

The derailment was Amtrak's deadliest accident since March 15, 1999, when a train collided with a truck and derailed near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 13 people and injuring more than 100.

The last Auto Train accident was in 1998, when a train hit an empty car at a crossing in the Virginia town of Jarratt. There were no injuries.

 

The track where an Amtrak Auto Train derailed in a deadly mess of mangled cars and rails was cleared Sunday, allowing the first trains to pass through this northern Florida town since the accident.

The original tracks were torn out by Thursday's derailment, which killed four people and injured more than 150. The first coal train that moved through Sunday morning was on temporary rails, said Gary Sease, spokesman for CSX, the freight railroad that owns the track.

The 39-foot-long sections of temporary track can hold slow-moving trains at 10 mph. The company plans to make improvements this week to allow the temporary tracks to withstand faster trains. He said an average of 28 trains a day are normally scheduled there.

As the coal train passed, workers continued clearing downed trees and debris from the area with bulldozers and cranes.