I work for Amtrak and I’ve worked on this train before. It’s crewed from New York and all of it’s crew was headed home. So far I’m having a hard time telling what’s going on. The only severe curve in the area is directly around 30th St. Station with speed restrictions only going up to 85 mph around the area. Just leaving Philly and coming into Trenton I can’t imagine the engineer not being on point.
From what I’ve seen on the news so far, the engineer saw something on started breaking, it wasn’t another train and usually it’s a person (it happens) and there are no crossings between was and nyc. I’m really concerned that there was something was on the track and that this was a terrorist attack.
Would not surprised me if someone did some “damage” on the track area that could have made this derailment, but this is just my guess.