Posted on 12/18/2017 8:44:10 AM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie
(KOMO) — PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. - All southbound lanes of Interstate 5 are closed south of Joint Base Lewis-McChord after an Amtrak train derailed and fell off an overpass onto the freeway. Some injuries have been reported. View image on Twitter View image on Twitter
Chris Karnes 🌹 @TacomaTransit The train has derailed. Emergency crews are on the scene. Massive damage. People are hurt. 10:01 AM - Dec 18, 2017 24 24 Replies 119 119 Retweets 30 30 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy
Motorists are being warned to avoid the area. "I was just shocked," said Peter Zimmerman of Olympia. "I couldn't believe it. It was like something out of a movie." State transportation officials say the train derailed near Mounts Road. View image on TwitterView image on Twitter
Danae Orlob @naenae007 @komonews 9:55 AM - Dec 18, 2017 12 12 Replies 9 9 Retweets 4 4 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy
View image on Twitter View image on Twitter
WSDOT Tacoma Traffic ✔ @wsdot_tacoma All SB lanes of I-5 blocked near Mounts Road in Pierce County due to derailed train car. Avoid area! 9:45 AM - Dec 18, 2017 33 33 Replies 470 470 Retweets 118 118 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy Amtrak officials said the train was the No. 501, which operates between Seattle and Portland. The train had just begun using a new high-speed route Monday morning. Lakewood city oficials had earlier expressed fears that the new route would cause serious accidents.
Amtrak service south of Seattle is temporarily suspended. Service from Seattle to points north and east is continuing to operate.
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There was obviously nothing moving at “low speed” in this derailment!
The first cars were dug into the dirt, being pushed as they tumbled.
KOMO now saying "possible track obstruction"...
That’s my current thinking.
The Loco on the tracks is a regular Amtrak unit. I don’t think many, if any of those have been hollowed out to become just a control station.
More footage on FNC. Holy cr@p. Whatever the death toll is, it’s a miracle it’s not higher....
Per FNC: NTSB presser at 2:30 Eastern. And something about Inslee declaring a state of emergency, and other train traffic shut down...?
At 18mph - which you’d think would be top speed to take an overpass at a 90o left turn - the cars wouldn’t have gone airborne but they sure would at 80mph?
reported 81 mph in 79mph zone fox news
Well south of Lakewood.
The mayor of Lakewood’s concern is undoubtedly about the trains speeding through populated areas.
Fox was speculating about this mayors concern a few weeks back. I don’t think this is an issue in this case.
This crash is not in a populated area.
It looks like a simple case of too fast for the turn to me.
I have walked well used tracks very near my house in south King county frequented several times a day used by freight and Amtrak headed east over the cascades, I can see that maintenance is quite poor.
There are many missing spikes for one thing.
I don’t think sabotage should be ruled out either.
The President is right on about our infrastructure.
He really nails it on a lot of things.
Per FNC: Preliminary indications train MAY have struck something on the track.
If true, that might explain state of emergency....
Looking at the railroad track corner to the right of the roadway, the only things able to take that at 81 would be open wheel race cars like F1’s or go-karts.
Looking at the railroad track corner to the right of the roadway, the only things able to take that at 81 would be open wheel race cars like F1’s or go-karts.
Great post. Was wondering what those cars behind the engines were.
“Per FNC: Preliminary indications train MAY have struck something on the track.
If true, that might explain state of emergency..”
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If it was going at about 80mph, wouldn’t the speed be a more likely cause?
The tried to put one in from Chicago to Minneapolis, bought a fancy hi-speed Spanish made train, then looked around at buying the necessary right of way, figured out the costs without massive subsidies, add subsidies back in, demanded an increase in state tax to pay for the State’s share, counted up the ridership and there it stopped - there was no one who would ride it other than occasionally - no one commutes from Chicago to Minneapolis. With all the stops, the train would not average above 30-40 mph.
Then the scaled back to Chicago to Madison, ran into exactly the same problems - even the drive time with heavy traffic was faster. The Madison station was so far out that it would have been a 15-20 minute taxi ride to the city.
We have such trains because it is a long standing ‘dream’ of liberal to crowd every one into cities, where the city would control everyone’s daily life, issuing permits to leave the city on case by case. Rail would be the ‘wonderful’ environmentally correct was to connect the cities. So the libs push their dopey dream as long as we are dumb enough to pay for it.
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