I have to agree with Karma Police about the employees. From what I have seen so far, BOTH trains were heading south INTO DC, thus they weren’t as crowded as outbound trains. That line loops into DC and then heads up towards Rockville. The distant between the loops is only about 5 to 10 miles..Most rush hour heading out of DC, either towards Rockville(one side of the loop) or toward Silver Spring(other side of the loop) would be packed. Horrible to have that happen and I’m wondering if all the rain we’ve had lately has undermined the railroad ties to cause the derailment. Sorry if this info is being repeated.
I ride the Red almost everyday to DC, then back again to Shady Grove. Today, I knew something was wrong, because the trains were holding at almost every station. Trains were crowded, but mostly we did not know what was going on until people started getting text messages.
I got calls from work, friends, family and neighbors making sure all was well.
IMO, and for what it's worth, this had to be a signal failure, or human error.
The moving train that hit the stopped train was going really fast. It had to be to end up on top of the stopped train. Messy. Very messy.