Posted on 05/13/2015 9:52:29 AM PDT by GIdget2004
An Amtrak train involved in a fatal crash here appears to have been traveling at more than 100 miles an hour as it entered a sharp curve where it derailed Tuesday night, killing at least six people, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.
The speed limit in that section of track drops to 50 miles per hour, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
Investigators are focusing on the possibility that excessive speed was a factor in the derailment, one of these people said. The locomotive and all seven passenger cars of the train went off the tracks at a tight curve at Frankford Junction, north of Philadelphia city center. Multiple cars overturned, severely injuring some passengers and pinning others. Six people were killed and more than 200 were injured, including eight who were in critical condition.
Amtrak officials notified some employees on a Wednesday conference call that excessive speed was believed to have contributed to the crash, said one of these people, who was briefed on the contents of the call.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
hmmmmm....... I doubt there is an Amtrack train capable of reaching 100 mph
Speed kills . . . but I’m sure that train always sped past their curve - had a history of it. It would certainly be a factor for consideration if terrorists did indeed choose this as an optimal target.
Texting
Report: Amtrak train was traveling more than 100 mph as it entered a sharp curve before derailing, sources tell @WSJ
Did the engineer lock himself in and yell Allahu Akbar?
After what happened in Japan in 2005 at the Amagasaki train crash west of Osaka that killed over 100 people due to excessive speed approaching a sharp curve, the West Japan Railway Company aggressively installed a lot more Automatic Train Stop (ATS) warning systems on the track. Maybe it’s time for the railroads on the Northeast Corridor to install ATS at every critical point on the track to prevent overspeeding, which may have caused this accident.
Nothing to see here...just excessive speed...no need to panic.
More to the point, I doubt that there is an Amtrak train that speeds at all without it being common knowledge. These things are timed from station to station and the station chief knows how long it takes going 60 mph.
The other issue though, is these things arrive and depart at stations on a timetable . . . very rarely do they deviate from that. If the train is scheduled to arrive at 1:23 a.m., it is going to arrive very much in the vicinity of 1:23 a.m.
From the surveillance video, it seems to be more like 80 mph.
This train has a “black Box”.
They’ll know how fast this was going by this afternoon.
Amtrak is late by hours coming behind our house all the time.
Engineer fell asleep, I bet.................
According to Fox, the engineer is refusing to talk to investigators. He's union of course, so naturally there will be a big fight over any disciplinary actions.
A hundred mph is hard to believe. I don’t know about the passenger locomotive models that Amtrak uses, but most locomotives have a top speed of 70mph. Also, there are usually onboard systems that limit the top speed of the locomotive, and will drop power and apply a penalty brake application if that speed is exceeded, and an engineer cannot override those systems.
The only way to know is to retreive the event recorder (locomotive “black box”), and look at the data.
From another article:
Amtrak crews have been installing “Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement” on the Northeast Corridor and other Amtrak rail routes, and were to install the system this year in the Philadelphia area.
The system is designed to prevent collisions, automatically slow speeding trains and enforce speed restrictions.
Positive Train Control, which includes Amtrak’s system, is required by federal law to be installed on all passenger and major freight railroads by the end of this year.
But many railroads have asked for more time to install the expensive systems, and Congress is considering extending the deadline to 2020.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150514_Amtrak_Derailment__What_we_know.html#9yKZIBCsqMR6dJok.99
It ought to be a lot simpler to engineer driverless trains than it is to do driverless cars or trucks that are currently all the rage.
The Acela Express tops out at 125mph....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.