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Let me throw something else into the mix here, not at the engineer, but at the duplicity of Amtrak. There is talk all over the news spectrum that if Positive Train Control had been installed and operative, this wouldn't have happened. This is followed by equal-opportunity congressional bashing on who's fault it is that PTC isn't installed yet. Amtrak is trying to play CYA, but they will be exposed as having a currently deployed technology that could have been installed and working to prevent this from happening. That technology is "Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System." From an earlier post here on FR by me and taken from an opinion article at CNN by Fred Frailey (long time Trains Magazine writer and columnist):

Meanwhile, Amtrak has its own version of positive train control, called Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System (ACSES). Its sophisticated technology is tested and known to work. Alas, its adoption has been slow in the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor, operative only between Boston and New Haven, Connecticut, on a short stretch of New Jersey just outside of New York City and in parts of northern Maryland.
The danger train travel can't banish

The irony is that this technology was installed and operating for southbound trains at this location because of the dramatic speed reduction from 110 mph to 70 mph or lower. It was not installed northbound because the speed reduction required to safely take the curve was not considered significant enough to warrant it's installation. Based on what I have read elsewhere, to install that technology would only require a few days labor for hardware work and very little software programming.

In summary, the PTC commotion regarding this specific location is mainly BS and I would expect that the current system will be in and working at that location well before the end of the year. As for PTC, Boardman or no one else can guarantee it will be working flawlessly by the start of 2016. As Frailey states:

Not until 2017 or 2018 will the large railroads finish installing positive train control. And until they do and flip the switch, there's no guarantee that it will even work. One fear is that positive train control will choke on its own complexity and slow the railroad network to a crawl.

One more item picked up from TrainOrders: One report has it that the FRA will not let trains move past the wreck location until ACSES is installed there. If true, it is indeed an easy fix and one that should have been performed there and lots of other locations a long time ago.