Northeast Regional 188 - Accident In Philadelphia

It is my theory that Amtrak will not be able to get through the current fiscal year without
a supplemental appropriation due to the wreck expenses, loss of traffic and lawsuits. The
ball will be in Congress' court as to whether Amtrak lives or dies.

Arlington wrote:
Anything "policy makers" do to make the train more expensive (or "safer") runs the risk of driving people off the train and into cars, where they're 15 to 20 times more likely to be killed per mile.

There's precedent for this. About 15 years ago, the NTSB and FAA were looking at mandating child seats for all infants flying on aircraft. The calculated it would save X lives a year.
BUT, then they looked at the increased cost, especially on say flights to Orlando where there's a LOT of families, and realized the additional cost of the extra seat (as opposed to a parent flying with a baby in their lap) would cause a certain percentage of people to drive instead. This number was apparently statistically significant enough that they realized the additional number of deaths due to car accidents would be higher than those saved on the plane. They cancelled the requirement.

That said, one advantage with most capital improvements that Amtrak (or others) could do to improve rail safety can be ultimately amortized over the years (unlike the cost of an additional car seat on a plane costing a single family more.)

Tying this back and to something I discussed years ago with someone in the industry, we'll almost certainly see the next generation single level fleet fitted with closed overhead compartments rather than the open compartments we have now. This will most likely cut down on the number of folks injured by flying baggage, which I'm guessing was not an insignificant number of the injuries in this crash.

tk48states wrote:I've thought about this wreck for a week and while all these conspiracy theories about rocks, bullets or other projectiles hitting the loco windshield make for interesting reading simple fact remains nothing short of a 105 round is going to derail an 800 ton train.
For whatever reason, hopefully to be determined by investigation, engineer became disoriented, lost track of his location and sped through a restricted curve, nothing else fits.

No one is saying a bullet is the direct cause of the derailment. They are saying it startled or otherwise disoriented the engineer enough to not notice his speed entering the curve.

Jeff Smith wrote:No one is saying a bullet is the direct cause of the derailment. They are saying it startled or otherwise disoriented the engineer enough to not notice his speed entering the curve.

What bullet? It hasn't been established what if anything struck Amtrak 188 prior to the derailment. Isn't this essentially speculation, which we supposedly are not supposed to be indulging in? Below is my source for stating it is not yet known what hit the Amtrak train.

The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia and a separate commuter train in the vicinity may have been hit by projectiles of some kind shortly before the wreck, an NTSB official said on Friday, after investigators interviewed members of the Amtrak crew. New link

Btw I was interested in reading comments in a private email from someone on Amtrak's engineering staff about this incident. He said that the reason the Frankford Jct. curve speed was programmed into the signal system westbound but not eastbound has to do with the approach speeds. The curve speed restriction is 50 mph. The westbound approach speed is 110 mph. That is considered fast enough that if a train did not reduce speed for the curve it would derail. Eastbound the approach speed is 80 mph. A train should be able to make it around that curve at 80 mph without derailing.

So the problem began with the train exceeding the 80 mph speed limit before it entered the curve.

Tommy Meehan wrote:. Isn't this essentially speculation, which we supposedly are not supposed to be indulging in?

This is a railfan forum, where speculation is part of the reason for being here. It's the people handling the official investigation who must rely only on actual evidence and not speculate.

Tommy Meehan wrote:Isn't this essentially speculation, which we supposedly are not supposed to be indulging in?

BR&P wrote:This is a railfan forum, where speculation is part of the reason for being here.

We have been warned repeatedly that speculation is subject to disciplinary action. The latest was on Friday evening in this thread.

Here are the rules. Read them and heed them
....

Rumors and speculation without citation are subject to redaction without warning.

ExNYC63 wrote:It is my theory that Amtrak will not be able to get through the current fiscal year without
a supplemental appropriation due to the wreck expenses, loss of traffic and lawsuits. The
ball will be in Congress' court as to whether Amtrak lives or dies.

Amtrak isn't going anywhere. The Congressional delegations of MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, and MD, not to mention VT, VA, NC, IL, MI, and CA, are not going to let it be killed. The Northeast "megalopolis" would grind to a halt without rail service- this is something that was realized by politicians of all stripes as long ago as the 1960's. It will get funded through political horse trading, same as it's always been.

As for traffic loss, I highly doubt one wreck is going to have a noticeable impact on ridership. Planes crash, ships sink, buses catch fire and burn up on I-90 http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Bu ... 26791.html yet people keep flying, going on cruises and riding the bus.

There was an interesting story in the NYT this morning about rocks being thrown at trains:

Rock Hurling Is Old Nemesis of Train Crews
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/us/pr ... tml?ref=us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm willing to wait a few more days for facts to come out before speculating. I'm not going to wait six months for some official report. The officials should have all the data they need to make an accurate determination. Was there a camera inside the cab?

Greg Moore wrote: ...we'll almost certainly see the next generation single level fleet fitted with closed overhead compartments rather than the open compartments we have now. This will most likely cut down on the number of folks injured by flying baggage, which I'm guessing was not an insignificant number of the injuries in this crash.

I remember reading, back when the new Acela trainsets came out, that the Acela cars were designed with latched overhead compartments for that very reason.

Tommy Meehan wrote:
We have been warned repeatedly that speculation is subject to disciplinary action. The latest was on Friday evening in this thread.

Here are the rules. Read them and heed them
....

Rumors and speculation without citation are subject to redaction without warning.

Well, I guess I had not realized the Gestapo had banned speculation. So we are limited to reading what is in the media, and repeating it here verbatim? That sure takes the fun out of it for me.

It's sad - we have some knowledgeable and perceptive people on here and I have enjoyed the evaluation and speculation on this thread. But when the forum seeks to limit the use of our brains and our exchange of ideas, what's the point of being on here at all?

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:

bluedash2 wrote:The Septa train terminated at the nearby North Phila station. There also was a window shot at on a car on the Acela train too. There are pics online of both windows.

The Acela was held at 30th St. for Amtrak Police to interview the witnesses and the mechanical dept. to come out and examine the window. Arrived in D.C. ~30 mins. late after they all finished up and the window was deemed structurally safe to proceed. It would've been a different story if it were one of the power car's windows, but this projectile hit a passenger window unlike the SEPTA and Regional trains and did not breach the innermost layer of glass.

I was in the Business Class car of a Regional last summer when the lower left corner of the window in the unoccupied seat ahead of me was blown in by a passing train just east of Holmesburg Junction station in Philly. I reported it to the conductor, and he had the engineer stop the train. When it was ascertained to Mechanical and the dispatchers that the window, while damaged, would hold, the train was released to proceed, BUT the car was closed to all passengers for the remainder of the trip to Boston. They opened up a deadheading coach on the rear as the "business class" car for the remainder of the trip.

Likely all passengers were removed from the car in question on the Acela as well before it departed Philly.

ExNYC63 wrote:It is my theory that Amtrak will not be able to get through the current fiscal year without
a supplemental appropriation due to the wreck expenses, loss of traffic and lawsuits. The
ball will be in Congress' court as to whether Amtrak lives or dies.

Similar words were said after the Chase accident.
Amtrak still lives.

I understand the mods wanting to limit some speculation. Otherwise it can get totally out-of-hand. I was just pointing out that it is far from an established fact that a round was fired at the Amtrak locomotive. In fact based on this statement by the NTSB, that the locomotive "may have been hit by projectiles of some kind," it sounds like it isn't even established yet that the locomotive was struck by anything. To state the engineer was distracted by encountering handgun or rifle fire is to speculate. But who knows, maybe it will turn out to be the case.

Btw I am attaching two cell phone photos I have seen on the Internet, taken by a passenger in the cafe car just moments after the derailment. The first photo is from immediately after the derailment and the second was taken as help began to arrive.

I also heard some stories about the derailment on a news radio station in New York on Friday, possibly worth passing along.

• One passenger, a man, said he had called his wife back in Queens while the train was stopped at 30th Street. Told her the train was on-time he'd be home by 11:30ish. Thirty minutes later he called her while standing in the bushes and weeds along the NEC. "Hi honey, it's me again. You're not going to believe this..."
• A woman said police climbed through windows to get to people in her car. The Philly cops told them to stay calm, don't move around and A LOT of help was on the way.
• A Philadelphia police officer praised the passengers. He said everyone he tried to help said, "Don't worry about me. Help that guy over there. He's hurt pretty bad."

Catastrophes really do bring out the best in people I guess. Not that I want to find out first hand!