Amtrak engineer remarked on train speed 6 seconds before crash: NTSB

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

#U.S. DECEMBER 22, 2017 / 1:29 PM / UPDATED 23 MINUTES AGO

Amtrak engineer remarked on train speed 6 seconds before crash: NTSB

Reuters Staff
3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - The engineer of an Amtrak passenger train that derailed off a bridge onto a highway near Seattle remarked that the train was speeding six seconds before the accident, U.S. investigators said on Friday.

The engineer then applied the brakes but apparently not the emergency brake, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement after retrieving and reviewing data from the so-called black box and inward- and outward-facing cameras.

Monday’s crash south of Seattle killed three people and sent about 100 others to the hospital. All 12 cars and one of the two engines jumped the tracks at a curve, sending all of them tumbling from a bridge onto an interstate highway.

The board has said the train was going about 80 miles per hour (129 km per hour), way over the 30-mph speed limit. On Friday it said the final recorded speed of the locomotive was 78 mph.

The train’s video cameras were damaged in the crash but investigators were able to download the contents with the manufacturer’s help at the NTSB lab in Washington, the board said in a statement.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-washington-train/amtrak-engineer-remarked-on-train-speed-6-seconds-before-crash-ntsb-idUSKBN1EG230

[Sneederbunk]

1. Was it a remark or an epithet?

[MrScorpio]

2. An "Oh, shit" moment, indeed.

[brush]

3. Just error compounded upon error. Going way too fast then wrong brake applied too late.

You'd think they hadn't made a practice run at all.

Is that even possible that on a new route, new train they didn't practice before hand?

If they had made a trial run they had to know a curve was coming up.

God, people have to pay fucking attention in positions like that.

Now 3 innocent people are dead and million will have to be paid out in law suits.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. Of course they made qualifying trips.

The question is why the speed restriction was ignored.

[brush]

7. I sure hope so. Seems like too many errors if there was familiarity with the route.

Like going 80 mph into a 30 mph turn.

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. I operated trains all my life

At higher speeds any misjudgement/lapse/distraction can have terrible consequences.

@79 mph correction time is greatly diminished.

[brush]

11. In your experience, why would someone familiar with the route not slow down at that turn?

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. It could be any of a host of reasons.

A distraction, something enough to draw attention away from the task at hand, talking on the radio to a dispatcher, others in the cab talking to the engineer, the list is endless. A simple memory lapse, mistaking the surroundings for another location, medical issue....

It only takes about 45 seconds to peel off a mile at @80mph - not much time to make a correction if you even realize what you've done.

I gave up Amtrak when the speed limit increased to 125mph and they took the fireman out of the cab. As soon as you see something, you've practically gone by it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. Shooting the emergency brake could have made it worse.

[KelleyKramer]

4. Why is there a 30mph turn on a high speed track?

Why is there a 30mph turn to begin with?

I thought that was a big part of the expensive price for high speed trains was building good clean tracks

[gladium et scutum]

6. "High Speed" is a misnomer

The bridge and approaches were for an old BNSF freight track. The old tracks were ripped up, roadbed reworked and new ties & rails laid. But all along the existing road bed. No wider radius curves to handle 80-90 mph trains. The Cascade train covers the 174 miles from Seattle to Portland is 3 hrs. 20 min. The train makes 6 stops between Seattle and Portland. The time by car is about 3 hrs. 30 min. In reality it is a faster milk run rather than a High Speed train as the Europeans or Japanese might operate.

[Aristus]

9. The derailment happened two blocks south of the exit I take to get to my clinic.

And about twenty minutes after I got to work. I didn't hear a thing, cosseted back in my office early in the morning. But the news reports sure got my attention.

The next two days in clinic were a little slow, access to the building being a little decreased...

[In_The_Wind]

13. It's a good thing you go to work early.

I didn't realize you were that close.

[Aristus]

14. It would have been an even closer shave if it had happened during my emergency medicine rotation

in PA School seven years ago. I took that route to get to Madigan Army Medical Center on Ft. Lewis every day for a month. Granted, I usually got to the hospital by 6am, and the derailment happened around 7:45am, so it still would have missed me. But still...