Posted on 05/13/2015 4:56:19 AM PDT by nuconvert
At least six people were killed and over 140 people hurt after an Amtrak train, carrying 238 passengers and five crew members, derailed and rolled onto its side in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia Tuesday night, according to officials.
The death toll from the crash rose to six Wednesday morning when Temple University Hospital officials confirmed one patient had died of their injuries overnight. 54 patients were treated at Temple, 25 remained hospitalized Wednesday morning including eight patients in critical condition, chief medical officer Dr. Herbert Cushing said at a briefing.
-excerpt-
The derailment occurred at almost the exact same location of another deadly derailment 71 years ago. On Sept. 6, 1943, a Congressional Limited careened off the tracks with 541 passengers on-board, including many service members on leave. Seventy-nine passengers were killed and 117 were injured.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcphiladelphia.com ...
OH MY!!! Looks really bad. Prayers for all.
Terrorism?
Sounds more like a failed rail bed.
People are missing.
How many injured have shown up at Stroger Hospital this morning?
Saw that. Thanks for posting the link.
This prior incident was apparently caused by a defect in the train, not the track.
Or a texting engineer taking a curve too fast.
There’s been a lot of talk about driverless cars lately, car controlled by computers.
How about some driverless trains, isn’t it long past time for them?
Of course, what would we do about the Affirmative Action Unionized employees?
How many must die before we improve the operating system?
A failing rail bed is not as uncommon an occurrence as one might think. There are probably thousands more throughout the US in various stages of degradation.
The railroads have been at this since before the Civil War, and still, rails are not foolproof. The roadbed is actually a high-maintenance part of railroading.
And it has to be coarse crushed stone ballast and wooden ties to take the pounding of heavy trains passing over every inch, there can be no substitutes if the traffic is really heavy or relatively fast. There have been stressed-concrete, plastic composite. and even steel ties used, but their use is limited to slow-speed, like a switching yard, or low traffic weight.
It derailed once before, same spot. Bad ground.
“How about some driverless trains, isn’t it long past time for them?”
I’ve been at a few airports that have driverless people movers.
I don’t think driverless trains are coming any time soon, but the federal government has put in place a requirement called ‘Positive train control’. When implemented, a controller could remotely stop a train, in case of terrorism. And, the infrastructure necessary to do this could also be used to monitor the speed of trains and remotely slow them down if they enter critical areas too fast.
So far, one of the major railroads has begun work on attempting to comply. The other major railroads have lobbied the federal government to remove the requirement - and so far they have got the implementation date extended repeatedly.
Its a classic case of public safety vs government interference...and like so many of these case in recent years, the boogeyman of terrorism is used as the ultimate reason why the government must interfere. On the other side of the scorecard, the railroads are a very strange animal, and they large ones practically owe their existence to federal land grants 150 years ago...so they have to accept a lot of regulation.
Anyway - sooner or later, speed related train crashes will become more rare.
A couple of other threads if anyone is interested in the comments thereon:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3289215/posts 242 replies
50 Hurt After Amtrak Train Derails in Philly ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3289254/posts 17 replies
At least five dead, 50 injured in Philadelphia Amtrak derailment ^
There’s been a lot of talk about driverless cars lately, car controlled by computers.
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Don’t forget the Trucks that are making it onto the scene now.
Freightliner Inspiration Truck Unveiled at Hoover Dam
http://www.daimler-trucksnorthamerica.com/news/press-release-detail.aspx#freightliner-inspiration-truck-unveiled-at-hoover-2015-05-05
We had an Amtrak train hit a tow truck in the small town I live outside of. Killed the tow truck driver and almost derailed the train. Fortunately it didn’t, otherwise, a lot of lives probably would have been taken along with lots of injuries. Amtrak trains do not slow down, they blow through at speeds in excess of 75 MPH.
Why don't we just replace people with robots altogether? Then there would be no poverty and no wars and no injuries, no hunger, no gang violence. Utopia.
Now imagine if it really was built, a California high speed train crash.
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