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Amtrak train derails onto Interstate 5 between Tacoma and Olympia, WA
- Thread starter NihonTiger
- Start date
Yeah, a lot of people were taken to the hospital and evaluated, but apparently only 12 weren't discharged as of ~6 PM
OP
OP
Amtrak service is fairly awful outside of the Acela corridor, and that's because it's more or less a patchwork of passenger rail lines that the major freight haulers wanted to kill off completely. It's only recently that it's been cared for at all, and there's several major cities completely excluded from the network (Columbus being one that immediately springs to mind)
So yeah, you can kill off Amtrak pretty easily. You'd have to either replace it with short-haul plane travel or some inter-city bus service like Megabus, which has a higher rate of accident leading to injury or death.
So yeah, you can kill off Amtrak pretty easily. You'd have to either replace it with short-haul plane travel or some inter-city bus service like Megabus, which has a higher rate of accident leading to injury or death.
Going at 80mph in a 30mph zone.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...iled-in-washington-has-speed-limit-of-30-mph/
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...iled-in-washington-has-speed-limit-of-30-mph/
What the fuck.
Questions:
Did the conductor survive?
If so can they interview him asap to ask him wtf he was doing?
"Part of that retrofit was to include "positive train control" systems that can prevent dangerous situations such as excessive speed.
The 14.5-mile corridor is now equipped for positive train control equipment, but the train controls aren't operating yet in that area, said Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson. An Amtrak spokesman said the equipment was still being tested."
Amtrak about to pay out the ass.
So the conductor fucked up.
I wonder if the conductor was relying on that shit instead of paying attention.
This kind of logic is baffling to me. Trains are exponentially safer than cars...
What? Unreal, indeed.
Seriously, did no one QC the rails? I just don't get how this can happen.
If engine operators were told that track uses positive train control then it's veeery likely that they didn't pay as much attention to track speed limits as they should have because they trusted there to be automated system in place to warn them, and to automatically slowdown.
Yeah for real. Driving was dangerous enough before cell phones, but now it's like Fury Road out there.
OP
OP
That's definitely a possibility at this point. But would they know their trains didn't have PTC active yet, or were they simply informed the new line had PTC capabilities?
I won't be shocked if they were told in briefing about new track that it uses PTC, but either way they will be thrown under the bus even if some higher ups also carried responsibility.
The mayor is not an expert on railroad safety and claimed the bypass "wasn't needed" and was a "waste of taxpayer money". His arguments when he sued included things such as "it will increase the feelings of isolation of citizens when a train goes by", and "threatens to destroy progress on the neighborhood". He appealed to the "strong sense of community" and "property values" in order to oppose the railroad.
Seems he was simply opposed to the project and safety was a convenient excuse.
You are thinking of the train crash in Santiago, but yes, it's similar. Both trains were going at higher speed than the maxium and derailed on a curve.
To drive the point home: Last year 37,461 people died in accidents involving cars in the United States. The worst railroad accident in American railroad history could repeat itself, every single day of every single week for a whole year and less people would die.
America is never going to develop any semblance of modern passenger rail infrastructure at this rate. We're generations behind the rest of the world and events like this will only lead to a decrease in railroad funding as people will misread the data and see this as normal rather than a rare and unfortunate accident. Such a tragedy, especially when effective passenger rail would save so much money/lives over cars
Yep. I loved rail in Europe and Japan.
This story is sad for the lives lost, but it's just another score against American's absolute hatred of anything other the than automobile for transit.
We seem to have a fairly high incident rate given how few trains we actually run. I don't trust companies like Amtrak to be cutting edge, I trust them to just sit on their railroad assets and do what's most economical. They should be like Hyperloop and shouting from the rooftops about their innovation, but they aren't and that's telling.
Intercity rail in the USA, such as Amtrak is probably the worst return on investment you can actually perform in the USA especially for the point you are bringing up. The vast majority of auto deaths are intracity (commuting, grocery shopping) not transiting between cities. Also our private freight rail system is exceptionally efficient and passenger trains just gum up the works.
Only the NE and Florida (odd, but trust me) have the local transit infrastructure and desnity to support intercity rail. And the NE is so terrible that buses provide better service. CAHSR is pretty much doomed to fail and was perfectly serviced by Airlines...
We would be better served in the NE with some kind of privatized service.
wait, the train was designed to run around 79 MPH, and the train and track were updated for this, but this single small point was sitting at a 30 MPH limit with a small sign 2 miles beforehand, in the dark, with antiquated technology.........RIP passengers. Amtrak will have to pay, feds will get involved, and actually for the first time I agree with Orange and need fix this decrepit infrastructure.
Somebody already said that statistics show the chance to die on a train is much lower then dying in a car accident.
Can't wait for automated trains and rails with less maintenance needed.
Still, Rest in Peace to the victims. Easily could have been avoided it seems, according to the newest information.
Why on earth would you put the train into service before the major safety feature to prevent accidents like this was tested and installed? Amtrak deserves a hell of a lawsuit over this one.
Wow just saw that update. Profit over safety every time it seems like. Corporations have GOT to be better regulated in this country. Its insane the state we have gotten too.
Wow just saw that update. Profit over safety every time it seems like. Corporations have GOT to be better regulated in this country. Its insane the state we have gotten too.
Because the safety feature isn't required for operation.
It would have prevented the accident, bet a lot of other potential things could have too.
If that's the reason then they should absolutely be harshly punished. PTC is not an excuse to not be monitoring your surroundings and still controlling the train, they utterly failed at their job regardless of what they were told if that winds up being the case.
Because it's not mandatory and most trains have been operating for decades without it? It's stupid but it's not some unthinkable thing where you can't use any trains until it's implemented, hell it was only recently installed in the last year or two for path trains going to NYC.
I just heard on the radio that Amtrak can only be partially liable. Not really sure why, maybe because it's a quasi government business.
Could be referring to this: https://www.resetera.com/threads/am...coma-and-olympia-wa.11688/page-6#post-2300062
Yeah they gon get to that $200 million cap.
Any word from the recent conference?
I'm not afraid of trains or anything haha.
I live in Japan and am posting from a subway as we speak.
Amtrak has just shown they have kind of poor standards and have shown incidents of negligence in the past.
Cars are of course more dangerous when you look at the statistics. However, Amtrak is pretty terrible compared to other leaders in the industry.
I don't think Japan has had a fatality from a train accident since like the 70s or something? That's how it should be.
I've done the NYC-Boston and the Boston-Portland segments multiple times. What's the issue?
2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_rail_crash - it's what led the Japanese rail industry to put PTC on all tracks.
The Wikipedia page lists similar accidents, and the only ones occurring after 2005 are in Spain and the US.
It sucks, is terrible, and every other pejorative that can be used.
https://twitter.com/sandypsj/status/943254986116534273
lol
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Damn I somehow completely forgot about this one. It actually happened right before I first came to Japan and
my relatives were all worried about it so not sure how I forgot.
I think the previous statistic I said about there not being fatalities since the 70s was only in regards to the Shinkansen maybe.
Or maybe it was just FUD that I read somewhere.
No it is correct. Previous casualty incident was in 1963. (IIRC)
And remember, their passenger rail companies are private and pay taxes!
See for yourself:
EDIT: My mistake, this seems to be last night's presser. The latest one should be uploaded soon.
After a quick search it does look like a much less severe derailment happened in 2000 as well, but yeah until those two most of them were between 1940-1965.
That's the sort of track record I want to see, and it's doubly impressive when you consider the amount of trains and people they are moving absolutely dwarfs something like Amtrak.
I'm pretty sure the train system in Tokyo alone handles more passengers per day than Amtrak does in an entire year!
Biggest new news from today's was that brakes were at no point triggered by engineer operating engine. They were automatically triggered by emergency system when shit started to go down.
That plus going 80 in 30 area is just huge failure at personnel level.
The US auto industry will surely not fail to capitalize on this tragedy. :( America will never give up cars. At this point I can only see autonomous cars as the only chance of reducing our travel fatalities.
Could indeed be that. OR, could be that they were told that the track has PTC, and then, hearing that, they did a Homer Simpson like zone-out, and didn't hear the part about the train itself not being equipped.
Either way, someone fucked up bad.
That would suggest to me that the engineer was either distracted with a PED or was fatigued to the point of sleeping or microsleep. Just speculation though, when the NTSB interviews the engineer, they'll know more.
Sorry for double post, but here is today's presser for those that missed it:
I usually just skip the question and answer phase, because the media tends to ask silly questions and the NTSB will usually answer with a variation of "the NTSB does not speculate".
I usually just skip the question and answer phase, because the media tends to ask silly questions and the NTSB will usually answer with a variation of "the NTSB does not speculate".
Third world country level healthcare
Third world country level education system
Third world country level government
Third world country level internet
Third world country level mass transit system
Third world country level society
Keep going America! At this pace, you'll reach full convertion by 2020, then you won't need to build a wall anymore! Well, maybe to keep people INSIDE.
Third world country level education system
Third world country level government
Third world country level internet
Third world country level mass transit system
Third world country level society
Keep going America! At this pace, you'll reach full convertion by 2020, then you won't need to build a wall anymore! Well, maybe to keep people INSIDE.