Posted on 12/18/2017 6:00:15 PM PST by Mariner
The Amtrak train that derailed Monday morning on its inaugural trip through a faster railway route was supposed to slow dramatically before entering the curve where the crash occurred.
The speed limit at the curve where the train crosses Interstate 5 is 30 miles per hour, said state transportation department spokeswoman Barbara LaBoe, while the speed limit on most of the track is 79 mph. She said speed-limit signs are posted two miles before the lowered speed zone and then just before the zone.
“Engineers are trained to slow trains according to posted speeds,” she said.
Daniel Konzelman, who was driving on I-5 south parallel to the train, said he was traveling at 60 mph or more and watched the train pass his vehicle about a half-mile before the crash. A website that monitors locations and speeds of Amtrak trains, transitdocs.com, reported that the train was going about 81 mph shortly before the derailment, The Associated Press reported.
Russell Quimby, a consultant who was previously an investigator-in-charge for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said it appeared to him that the derailment was caused by speed. He said the track appeared relatively undisturbed, so it seemed unlikely that something knocked the train off the track, and he noted that it appeared the train drove in a straight line, missing the turn.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
I didn’t take it personally. We all want answers and facts. Not likely to get them any time soon. I don’t understand why they haven’t released the name of the engineer. Why does he/she get special protection?
I really miss investigative reporters.
They are probably not releasing the name of the engineer because they don’t want him opening his big mouth before they all get their stories straight.
This entire situation is more complicated than I have made it sound. It never really was about saving 70 people 4 minutes 5 times a day. That is just a lie they have repeatedly told the public.
The Amtrak Cascades is actually run by the State of Washington and Oregon and Amtrak is their contractor. Despite subsidizing passenger fares by 2 to 1, meaning that the State of Oregon and Washington pay $2 for every $1 that a passenger pays, the Amtrak Cascades still loses $250 Million dollars every year not including capital expenditures.
Nationwide publicly owned passenger rail projects are basically always huge money pits. This makes them ripe for the picking when it comes to political cronyism. It is a big scam that the left is hugely dependent on in many cases. Sound Transit was recently voted an additional $50 Billion dollars which by the notes are due will easily balloon into two or three times that amount.
There is so much money involved that unusual behavior and situations that cannot be explained occur because of behind the scenes deals and arrangements. This is government at its very worst... which is the result of a very easily manipulated liberal electorate on the Western side of Washington.
this kind of money can manipulate the truth so badly that one would swear the Clintons were involved.
“Sound Transit’s day to day operations are expected to lose $190 million in 2017. Tax revenues exceed the capital improvement budget for the year, so the net loss will only be $131 million.[5]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Transit
“The current CEO of Sound Transit is Peter Rogoff. He served as President Obama’s Federal Transit Administrator and Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy in the U.S. Department of Transportation.”
Sound Transit has been given the authority to spend so much money that it attracts even these big time grafters. This type of agency has almost no oversight at all and the opportunities to channel money and favors toward your political cronies are almost unlimited. This creates huge opportunities for quid pro quo arrangements... the types of arrangements that the Clintons have been made wealthy by.
My guess is that Peter Rogoff, the CEO of Sound Transit is set for life. Pierce County has reputation for extreme corruption. I am very aware of extremely questionable arrangements made by one of our most notorious local politicians, John Ladenburg when he was the head of Sound Transit.
Looks like it is run by Washington local and state politicians with no neutral oversight. What could go wrong?
For what it’s worth.
He should have been charged, convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, but the union's influence kept him safe.
The fact that everybody involved with Amtrak and WSDOT have clammed up makes me think this is going to happen again.
Yet the story said passenger asked to borrow his cell phone and at first he refused but she kept begging. He eventually gave her his phone and told her the location where they were and the train number. But remember “situational awareness” if you ever need an excuse.
Let me throw this out there. What if someone with a can of paint and a little talent turned that “3” on the speed sign into an “8”?
Which incident are you referring to? And whose cell phone? I’m having trouble parsing your use of pronouns.
The engineer is also issued a booklet with block locations and speed limits. He would have had to turn the “3’ in the booklet into an “8”. Also note that the maximum speed limit for passenger trains (without cab signals and not on the Northeast Corridor) as delineated by the FRA in 1982 is 79 mph.
“The prosecutor listed graphic details of the injuries suffered by the people who died. Among his witnesses was Blair Berman, who encountered Bostian just after the derailment.
Berman, tossed from the train and hobbled by her injuries, asked to use his phone. Initially, he refused, but Berman didn’t take no for an answer. “I was very aggressive,” she recalled.
As she called her father, she asked Bostian where they were, and he was specific about the location and the train number, 188. That level of awareness seemed at odds with other recollections. Philadelphia police Detective Joseph Knoll recalled meeting Bostian at ...
Thank you for avoiding pronouns. That made it easier to understand your point.
Is there any evidence of that?
Well, then it could be a criminal act realized with the help of someone’s negligence. I have a niece who is an Amtrak engineer. I should ask her what the standard practice is.
When all is said and done, you’ll find that this is a carbon copy of the Philadelphia incident of two years ago. The operator lost situational awareness for some reason.
None that I know of. Just another one of many theories that are floating around.
The Mayor called it out.
My only info far FAKE news
What does SHORTLY mean?
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