Amtrak Train May Have Been Struck Before It Derailed, Officials Say

New Yoirk Times ^ | May 15, 2015 | DAVE PHILIPPS and EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS

[MeshugeMikey]

PHILADELPHIA — An assistant conductor on the Amtrak train that derailed on Tuesday believes she heard the engineer tell another regional train operator in a radio transmission that the train had been struck by something just before the accident, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

At a news conference on Friday, Robert L. Sumwalt, the safety board official who is leading the investigation, said the F.B.I. had been asked to examine what he described as a fist-size impact area found on the lower left side of the train’s windshield. Officials said that the F.B.I. had been called in because it has the forensics expertise needed for the investigation, but that it had not yet begun its analysis.

[CivilWarBrewing]

He might have been momentarily dazed from the impact/fragmentation of the projectile which caused him to give the accelerator a nudge, then in order to correct that response, hit the emergency brake...

Case solved. There's an armed terrorist or 'one off' sniper/rock hurler on the loose.

Leave it to FR to solve crimes. I'm available 24 hours. Woof woof!

[Greysard]

Or maybe he accelerated to get away from whatever the source of the projectiles was.

It takes forever and then some to accelerate a train. It's not a very good getaway vehicle. If you are hit with projectiles, the most sane course of action is simply to hide in the machine compartment. It's full of equipment that is made from metals. There are very few projectiles outside of military that can punch through copper windings of those transformers.

[Publius]

Amtrak owns and dispatches the Corridor, so the SEPTA engineer would have radioed Amtrak Dispatching. The dispatcher would have radioed other trains in the area warning them.

I can remember Poles, southern Germans and Ukrainians in that neighborhood half a century ago. It's -- ahem! -- changed.

[Sir Napsalot]

Thank you for the update, I didn't know about the Acela incident at all.

Three (!!!) in one night, fairly close timing all together. [”Three means war” and declaration of ‘religion of war, not religion of peace’ just the other day.] This is getting more and more ‘headline news worthy’.

People would have been too busy responding to the derailment, and not reporting seeing any suspicious lurking personnel.

[willk]

Look at that diagram of the route with speed limits. Notice that just beyond the curve is an area where trains accelerate to 100 MPH. Could the engineer have become distracted (maybe from whatever struck the train) and mistakenly thought he was beyond the curve? He started to accelerate, then realizing his mistake, panicked and pulled on the brake?

[MeshugeMikey]

this might be ...might be...why the engineer sped UP before the curve thinking he could avoid being HIT..

thats the most plausible reason other than utter insanity

[MeshugeMikey]

Ive been so busyt looking at all the articles on this mess....that I havent given the map a good look yet

Thank you will do now.

[NormsRevenge]

He was stunned temporarily by the impact.. Fell forward.. Hit the throttle by accident.. Bada beem bada boom :-)

[cornfedcowboy]

I’m not saying it was aliens.

---

Why does this always make me laugh.

[Publius]

The problem with that is that the curve is a goodly distance north of the purported projectile incidents.

The black box should be able to determine precisely where the acceleration happened.

[Theoria]

I'm not saying anybody threw or shot anyone. But, if all the damaged trains passed thru the same corridor, it simply could have been debris or a similar obstacle that they all came across. Nothing needs to be thrown or shot, the train itself is creating the force, any stationary obstacle is bad enough.

[EBH]

The SEPTA engineer relayed that he’d had to apply the emergency brakes after his windshield was broken by a projectile or possibly a bullet.

“She also believed that she heard [the Amtrak] engineer say something about his train being struck by something,” Sumwalt said. “This is her recollection, and certainly, we are going to be conducting further investigation of this comment.”

“Our investigation has not independently confirmed this information, but we have seen damage to the left-hand lower portion of the Amtrak windshield that we have asked the FBI to come in and look at for us,” he said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/fbi-looking-into-fractured-amtrak-train-window-118010.html#ixzz3aG7qiLbp

Seems to me their looking for bullets, not bricks.

[Publius]

If you know anything about that neighborhood in North Philadelphia, you know that flying bullets are a frequent occurrence.

[MeshugeMikey]

would a stationary obstacle have raised a red flag....and there have been communication from the first two trains that “collided” with it or parts of it?

no mentions been made of anyone seeing a stationary object on or near any tracks that I know of.

[MeshugeMikey]

I dont know that we will find out the precise locations of any of the trains when they struck by what manner of projectile.

[MeshugeMikey]

I didnt locate that article until ..today..oddly enough.

This is all a bit much.

[Publius]

No, but we’ll be able to find the location of the sudden acceleration from the black box. The two events may add up.

[matt04]

Does Amtrak record train to dispatch radio audio at their dispatch office?

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Are SEPTA and Amtrak on the same CB channel?

[MeshugeMikey]

perhaps the yout..have joined...the Jihad.