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The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the crash, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday. In 2008, Congress ordered the installation of what is known as positive train control systems, which can detect an out-of-control, speeding train and automatically slow it down. But because lawmakers failed to provide the railroads access to the wireless frequencies required to make the...

CLEARWATER -- An Amtrak conductor on medical leave in the Bay area has watched news of the derailment in Philadelphia in disbelief. Mike Callanan worked that very northeast route for Amtrak as a conductor for five years. He even trained the conductor who was onboard when the train flew off the track, killing eight people. “It was very emotional for me," said Callanan. "These are my brothers and sisters out there. I worked with them every day on the Northeast Corridor.” Callanan is very familiar with the curve leaving Philadelphia where the derailment occurred. The speed limit is 50 miles...

Taxpayers lost $833 million over the last decade on the food and beverages supplied by Amtrak, which managed to spend $1.70 for every dollar that received in revenue. “Over the last ten years, these losses have amounted to a staggering $833.8 million,” said Rep.John Mica, R-Fla., in a statement previewing a House hearing today. “It costs passengers $9.50 to buy a cheeseburger on Amtrak, but the cost to taxpayers is $16.15. Riders pay $2.00 for a Pepsi, but each of these sodas costs the U.S. Treasury $3.40.”"Amazon.com is currently selling 24-packs of 12 ounce Pepsi cans for $8.94 -- which...

Brandon Bostian, crashed Amtrak train's engineer, reportedly ranted about safety: 'I wish the railroads had been more proactive' BY KELDY ORTIZ , DAREH GREGORIAN The engineer who was behind the controls of an Amtrak train that derailed going around a curve at 100 mph is a lifelong train buff who's written online about the need for better rail safety, it was reported Thursday. Brandon Bostian, writing on website Trainorders.com, criticized railroads for not installing "positive train control" systems to prevent crashes, the New York Times reported. "At any point over the previous EIGHTY years the railroad could have voluntarily implemented...

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that this week's fatal Amtrak crash wasn't caused by a lack of federal funds and mocked a reporter for even asking about it. "Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?" he said at a news conference as a reporter started to ask about Democratic complaints that the government shortchanges the railroad.

Amtrak likely faces hundreds of millions of dollars in claims from victims of the derailment of a northeast regional train at Frankford Junction in Philadelphia Tuesday night, according to personal-injury lawyers who specialize in transportation accidents. Because Congress capped such payouts for Amtrak in 1997, money to compensate victims probably will fall short of what is needed, these lawyers say. Under the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act, damages paid by the government to people injured in Amtrak derailments and families of those passengers killed was limited to $200 million per crash. But with eight killed and about 200 of the...

A portrait of the engineer at the helm of a speeding Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia began to emerge on Thursday as the man's lawyer said his client could not remember the crash and rescuers pulled an eighth body from the wreckage. With the engineer facing intense scrutiny over his role in the accident, Philadelphia police said they launched a criminal investigation into Tuesday's crash of the New York-bound train. Bostian was described as quiet and unassuming by people who crossed his path in Forest Hills, a middle-class section of Queens where he resides. Three workers at the nearby...

Reflections on the May 12, 2015 Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia... First Day at School You’re a gym teacher at a new school, in charge of 30 kids in a gym, on your first day at work. You can’t keep your eye on all of them at once. While you were helping a couple of kids improve their free throws at one end, you hear a shout at the other end of the gym; one kid knocked another down. Scenario 1: You don’t know either kid at all, so you objectively ask the kids to all explain what happened. You...

  There's something very wrong with liberals. Very, very wrong. They love to take political advantage of the dead, whether it's Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Benghazi or the Amtrak dead. The bodies of the dead in the Amtrak crash weren't cold- and perhaps hadn't even been recovered yet- when the left began using the Amtrak tragedy to hammer Republicans, blaming budget cuts for the crash. You see, it was budget cuts that made the train go twice as fast as it was supposed to be going. Predictably, the NY Times jumped in with both feet: Such spending now...

The Amtrak engineer involved in a crash Tuesday evening that killed at least seven near Philadelphia has no recollection of the crash and can offer investigators few details of the incident, his lawyer said.

Thursday at his weekly press briefing, House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) lashed out when a reporter asked if funding was an issue on the heels of this week’s tragic crash of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia, killing 7 and injuring hundreds.

... The Facebook page of the engineer of the derailed Amtrak train was changed within hours of the crash to substitute his profile picture with a black rectangle. Friends of Brandon Bostian seemed to know about his role in it before his name publicly surfaced and rallied to his side. One Facebook friend whose profile identifies him as an Amtrak engineer in California posted "it could have been any one of us and you are not alone."

The engineer in control of the Amtrak train that derailed on Tuesday, killing at least seven people, has no recollection of the moment the train crashed, his attorney has said. Brandon Bostian, of Queens, New York, has been as the driver of the commuter service that came off the tracks near Philadelphia, leaving 200 people hospitalized. On Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators confirmed that the train had been traveling at 106 mph before it derailed at a curve on the tracks, where the speed limit is 50 mph. Bostian, who has been an engineer with Amtrak since 2009,...

Investigators did not speculate why an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia Tuesday night, but they did say that the train was traveling at over twice the speed limit going into the curve where it derailed. The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia late Tuesday night was traveling at 106 miles per hour into a sharp curve, more than twice the designated speed limit, causing it to derail, killing at least seven people and injuring 200 more. Full “engineer induced braking” occurred at that speed, and within seconds the train had derailed, according...

On his increasingly popular radio show, Mark “The Great One” Levin lashed out at liberals yesterday for trying to politicize the Amtrak disaster. He played several audio files of Democratic politicians and pretend-journalists who didn’t even wait until the victims’ bodies were cold before they started playing their usual political games, and rightfully responded with great outrage: "Almost since last night, but since early this morning — while emergency personnel are at the crash scene trying to find bodies, trying to save people, trying to get them to the hospital — early this morning, within hours of the accident, the...

BREAKING: GotNews IDs Gay Activist Train Engineer Who Caused Amtrak Crash UPDATED W/ PHOTOS! May 13, 2015 by Charles C. Johnson 184 Comments Gotnews.com has independently identified the engineer at the center of the Amtrak crash that has killed at least seven. Brandon Bostian is the 32-year-old gay man who lawyered up after a deadly derailment in Philadelphia. The train was reportedly going twice the speed limit.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Federal investigators have determined that an Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was careening through the city at 106 mph before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit drops to just 50 mph, yet they still don’t know why it was going so fast.

For one thing, we still don’t know what caused the derailment. First responders had not finished combing the wreckage of Tuesday night’s Amtrak derailment for bodies when the liberal outlet Vox posted: Alarming headline, exploitative disaster photo. The only thing missing is a picture of a grinning Ted Cruz. The response to last night’s deadly Amtrak wreck in Philadelphia prompts two observations. First — and this seems important — we don’t yet know what caused the derailment. An investigation is under way. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the train was traveling more than 100 mph — more than...

The attorney for the engineer who was at the controls when an Amtrak train crashed in Philadelphia says his client has no recollection of a crash that killed at least seven people. Attorney Robert Goggin says Brandon Bostian remembers attempting to reduce speed as the train entered a curve before he was knocked out and sustained a concussion. Goggin says Bostian told him the last thing he recalls is coming to, looking for his bag, retrieving his cellphone and calling 911 for help. The lawyer says his client's memory could likely return as the head injury subsides.

Was this kid pushed up the ladder to fill some quota?  Merely because he had the right fruit-factor? We already know that Barack Obama has politicized every damn government agency he could find -be it IRS, DHS, or Park Service- utilizing them to inflict his nuttier-than-sqirrel-poop agenda on us all, punish enemies, and reward political/financial supporters... but do you recall Amtrak's recent (silly and funded with your tax dollars)  gay-outreach program...? As if riding the train is somehow different for these people- can't just sit back and enjoy the view like everybody else. As with other valuable voting blocks, it...