Free Republic

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) estimated Saturday that Amtrak would require $117 billion for improvements to its Northeast Corridor following a fatal crash on that line earlier this week. “If we’re going to have passenger rail, we’re going to need to make it safe and make it efficient,” he told The Billy Penn. “It’s going to require investment,” he added, predicting Amtrak would need $117 “billion with a B” for reaching optimal safety and speed along its Northwest Corridor. Fattah, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, criticized Republicans for opposing additional funding measures for Amtrak. “One party thinks...

A passenger traveling along the same route the night that Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Philadelphia told NBC News that an object hit his train, shattering the window. The account from Johns Hopkins student Justin Landis makes him the third person to report a projectile hitting a train Tuesday night in that area, and comes a day after the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators were working to determine whether something struck the doomed Amtrak train before it derailed. Eight people were killed and about 200 others were injured in the accident.

The Federal Railroad Administration has reportedly ordered Amtrak to modify its signal system to protect against speeding around sharp curves along the Northeast Corridor, including the one where a train derailed Tuesday night killing eight people. The Wall Street Journal , citing a person familiar with the matter, reports Amtrak will change its current automatic braking system to protect against speeding trains at the curve where Northeast Regional Train 188 in Philadelphia derailed. National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Thursday that such a circuit would have prevented the Amtrak derailment Tuesday.

Investigators found a “fist-sized circular area of impact” in the windshield of the derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia.  This new twist has us all thinking the same thing:  terrorists may have again struck America’s soft underbelly. Robert L. Sumwalt, the lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference Friday an assistant conductor reported that she heard a radio transmission between an engineer on a regional line and Brandon Bostian, the engineer on the derailed train, The New York Times reported. Investigators asked the engineer, Brandon Bostian, whether he recalled any projectiles, and he said he...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)An Amtrak employee has filed the first lawsuit in connection to Tuesday's deadly train derailment that killed eight people and injured over 200 others in Philadelphia. The Bala Cynwyd law firm Coffey Kaye Myers & Olley, which is representing Amtrak employee Bruce Phillips and his wife Kalita Phillips of Philadelphia, confirmed with NBC10 that their clients are filing a lawsuit against Amtrak. Phillips is still hospitalized at Temple University Hospital. Phillips, an Amtrak employee, was "deadheading" in one of the rear railcars of Amtrak Regional Train 188 Tuesday night when the derailment occurred, according to the lawsuit. Deadheading is a...

MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said that Republicans “treat trains like Hispanics” on Thursday. Matthews argued that AMTRAK could “unite this country. It wouldn’t be flyover country, it would be one country again. Rail could bring us together. Culturally, it would be the greatest thing. St. Louis would boom, Cincinnati, all those train stops, all those rail heads would be back in business big-time, if we were united by rail, instead of flyover, looking down on the people, the everyday people.”

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...

An assistant conductor on the Amtrak train that derailed Tuesday said she heard the engineer tell someone the train had been struck by something, the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday. NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said the 39-year-old assistant conductor, interviewed for the first time Friday, could hear the radio transmissions of engineer Brandon Bostian. She heard the engineer of a SEPTA train say that the windshield of his train had been struck by something and that he had placed his train in an “emergency stop.” She said she then heard “her engineer” say he believed their train may have...

The FBI has been asked to investigate the possibility that the Amtrak train that crashed outside of Philadelphia was hit by a bullet or some other object. According to the The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an assistant conductor in the train’s café car claimed to have overheard a regional train engineer saying he had been “hit by a rock or shot at.”

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 39-year-old assistant conductor was listening in on Brandon Bostian’s radio conversations with a SEPTA train engineer, who told the Amtrak engineer his train had been hit by a rock or shot at. The SEPTA engineer said he had a broken windshield and made an emergency stop, she said. Bostian also said something about his train being struck by an object, she told National Transportation Safety Board investigators Friday.

A computer system that allows speeding trains to be slowed remotely – potentially averting deadly derailments – was installed in the section of track in Philadelphia where Tuesday’s fatal Amtrak crash occurred but had not been turned on, congressional sources tell U.S. News. “The PTC was installed in the section of track where the Philadelphia accident occurred, but for whatever reason had not been turned on, the PTC in that section,” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., tells U.S. News, referring to "positive train control." His account was corroborated by Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. “The tracks had PTC, the train had PTC,”...

Gotnews.com has obtained the disturbing d**k pics of #BrandonBostian, the engineer who killed at least 8 people in a horrific crash earlier this week. Bostian has lawyered up and implausibly claimed that he has no memory of the events leading up to the crash. ....

Investigators of Tuesday's deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia reportedly have obtained a search warrant for the cell phone records of the train engineer in an effort to determine if he was distracted in the moments leading up to the fatal crash. The Inquirer reported that police officials had discussed the possibility of pressing charges against Bostian as early in the investigation as Wednesday morning. However, the Philadelphia District Attorney's office decided there had not been enough evidence collected to do so.

“Infrastructure-wise, we’re becoming a Third World country,” guest host Joy Behar says.The women of “The View” tackled a pressing issue of the week along with a decade-long argument on Thursday’s episode: the deadly Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia and America’s decision to go to war in Iraq. With Whoopi Goldberg absent from the show, Nicolle Wallace, Rosie Perez and Raven-Symone were joined by “View” veteran Joy Behar and model/actress Molly Sims. Given the diverse ideologies on Thursday’s panel, the conversation grew heated at times. The discussion about the train derailment in Philadelphia quickly turned to Republican efforts to cut funding...

Right before its fatal derailment on Tuesday night, Amtrak Train 188 accelerated significantly as it approached the Frankford Junction curve, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the crash, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday. In 2008, Congress ordered the installation of what is known as positive train control systems, which can detect an out-of-control, speeding train and automatically slow it down. But because lawmakers failed to provide the railroads access to the wireless frequencies required to make the...

CLEARWATER -- An Amtrak conductor on medical leave in the Bay area has watched news of the derailment in Philadelphia in disbelief. Mike Callanan worked that very northeast route for Amtrak as a conductor for five years. He even trained the conductor who was onboard when the train flew off the track, killing eight people. “It was very emotional for me," said Callanan. "These are my brothers and sisters out there. I worked with them every day on the Northeast Corridor.” Callanan is very familiar with the curve leaving Philadelphia where the derailment occurred. The speed limit is 50 miles...

Taxpayers lost $833 million over the last decade on the food and beverages supplied by Amtrak, which managed to spend $1.70 for every dollar that received in revenue. “Over the last ten years, these losses have amounted to a staggering $833.8 million,” said Rep.John Mica, R-Fla., in a statement previewing a House hearing today. “It costs passengers $9.50 to buy a cheeseburger on Amtrak, but the cost to taxpayers is $16.15. Riders pay $2.00 for a Pepsi, but each of these sodas costs the U.S. Treasury $3.40.”"Amazon.com is currently selling 24-packs of 12 ounce Pepsi cans for $8.94 -- which...

Brandon Bostian, crashed Amtrak train's engineer, reportedly ranted about safety: 'I wish the railroads had been more proactive' BY KELDY ORTIZ , DAREH GREGORIAN The engineer who was behind the controls of an Amtrak train that derailed going around a curve at 100 mph is a lifelong train buff who's written online about the need for better rail safety, it was reported Thursday. Brandon Bostian, writing on website Trainorders.com, criticized railroads for not installing "positive train control" systems to prevent crashes, the New York Times reported. "At any point over the previous EIGHTY years the railroad could have voluntarily implemented...