Posted on 09/26/2021 9:24:21 AM PDT by FryingPan101
An Amtrak train derailment in northern Montana has left at least three dead and 50 injured.
Amtrak said its Empire Builder train went off the tracks at about 4 p.m. Saturday near Joplin, Montana, according to the Billings Gazette.
The Chicago-to-Seattle train of 10 cars and two locomotives had 141 passengers and 16 crew members on board.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
We once traveled Amtrak routinely. I think I would still try it again someday but one trip from Kansas City, MO to Waco, Texas one January left me having nightmares. It was freezing….and the door kept opening to our car and slamming shut. All day. All night. A blast of frigid air entering each time. The safest place was the dining car. We were alerted to the possibility of a rough ride due to frozen tracks. I read the account of Montana and I just wonder about the rail system. I loved Amtrak..I still travel the interstate by myself just to watch the cargo trains and trucks. America. Commerce. I grew up using subway trains and buses to travel. Good morning, America, how are you…🎶 https://youtu.be/fF1lqEQFVUo
My prayers for Montana’s recent tragedy.
Video just after it happened
3 dead, multiple injured, after an Amtrak train derails in Montana
https://rumble.com/vmyyj9-3-dead-multiple-injured-after-an-amtrak-train-derails-in-montana.html
If only Hunter Biden were still on Amtrak’s board of directors, accidents like this wouldn’t happen. His railroad, energy, international trade, and high finance smarts are extraordinary, for beyond our ability to really appreciate them.
“Amtrak said its Empire Builder train went off the tracks...”
Actually, AMTRAK went off the tracks DECADES ago, but was saved by our Tax Dollars.
Prayers up for those injured and the families of those killed. :(
Our loss (sob!) is art’s gain.
Who is John Galt?
“No cause for the derailment had been determined as of Sunday morning.”
First question. Was a road nearby?
Any eco terrorists nearby?
There are lots of bomb throwers here, now
I’m surprised they still call the train the Empire Builder. I thought that name would have been cancelled by now.
Exactly. Other much heavier trains ran over that same stretch of track in the hours and days preceding the crash. Every mile of track is driven over by special trucks on a regular basis that check the rails.
Prayers to the victims and their family!! I wondered what happened. The Empire Builder is one train I’d love to take...
Yes. US Highway 2. It parallels the BNSF tracks.
That BNSF line ("High Line," ex-Great Northern) is the main connector linking Chicago and the Twin Cities in the east to the ports of the Pacific Northwest in the west. It's kept in tip-top condition.
I suspect a maintenance problem with Amtrak's Superliner equipment. (I've taken the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle many times.)
Amtrak tries to keep the name of the heritage trains as much as possible when applicable.
The "empire builder" was James Jerome Hill, the creator of the Great Northern. He built the railroad with individual private capital, not using the government technique of land grants or relying on Wall Street players. When one Wall Street player got in Hill's way for financing the railroad, Hill picked the man up and dangled him outside the window of his fifth floor office. The player got the message immediately.
Hill was the model for Nat Taggart in Atlas Shrugged.
Thanks for the background.
Yikes! I have taken the Empire Builder eight times in the past several years; great train and lots of fun. Sad to read this.
The government favored railroad was the Northern Pacific, who built their line from Minneapolis-St. Paul via Fargo, Bismarck and Billings to the western terminus of Portland, Oregon.
Hill came in and built his line north through Duluth, Grand Forks, Minot, Great Falls to to western terminus of Seattle. For a few years, there was stiff competition between the two before they merged.
Farmers actually got better rates using Hill's line to the extent that mid-sized towns built spur lines to connect to GN hub cities like Minot or Grand Forks. When North Dakota decided to build a state-owned mill and elevator during the Great Depression, Grand Forks won location rights over the much larger city of Fargo for precisely that reason.
This is why the Empire Builder continues north out of Fargo before turning west at Grand Forks, leaving larger towns on the old NP line like Bismarck and Billings with no Amtrak service at all. However, I believe they still have a spur that splits in Spokane with one going west-south-west to Portland and the other going west to Seattle.
May or may not be relevant, it appears that there was maintenance planned on that section (piles of new ties beside tracks). Also looks to me as if splitting a switch was possible as the trains appears to come from the far track onto the near track then back to the far track in that video.
I did not know that,and i grew up in Moorhead, just across the Red River from Fargo. Very familiar with the NP train station and NP Avenue among many other places in the Fargo/Moorhead area. Still have some extended family there. Thanks for the information!
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