Cascades 501 Wreck 18 December 17

Yes, with a literal bang

https://twitter.com/wsdot_tacoma/status ... 4502670337

some how, on the first day of Point Defiance bypass service, the train has fallen into the freeway

Admin Note:

Split from the All Things Cascade thread.

My link probably backtracks to the original link.
https://twitter.com/realtimwilliams/sta ... 9288418304" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As always, let the investigation play out, please.

All things Cascade will be closed briefly.

Live news broadcast here: http://www.kgw.com/news/amtrak-cascades ... /500305839" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks pretty bad. At least one car is smashed to bits upside down. No word on casualties yet.

Train 501 was the train involved.

Rather unfortunate this happened on the first day of service on the new route!

Breaking news. Casualties reported. More info to come.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/us/amtrak ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone on that train.

I've seen twitternews that area medical support declared this a mass casualty, although that's to marshal resources at the site, not necessarily the casualty count.

After the Missouri River flood of 1993, the Burlington Northern had to rebuild the historic CB&Q roadbed between Kansas City and St Joseph. Much of it had been eroded away by the flooding. I remember how much time it took the BN to rebuild, and I remember that for a good month after the first train, they ran the line with super slow orders (<20 MPH), and then for another month ran trains at NTE 35MPH, before they released them to operate at speed.

I can only hope the new routing for the Cascades was as carefully vetted before the Day 1 revenue runs.

One car still attached to the loco, one car dangling off the bridge, one smashed upside down on the road, one appears to be dangling a bit on the other side of the bridge, and at least one car on the ground on the other side of the bridge, That's 5 cars, how many cars are these trainsets?

I hope this is a case that it looks a lot worse than it really is.

The bridge looks like it is on quite an S curve in a very short distance

There is a Charger on the ground and Genesis on the track, which unit was leading? Those of us not familiar with the area do not whats north or south.

I am in NYC so I am aware of what goes on closer to home including the necessary work needed at Penn Station which is still ongoing. The Northeastern corridor seems to be getting in better shape overall with Positive train control added, and other upgrades all across the North East USA.

I was not paying attention to the new Tacoma route but someone has a lot of explaning to do once they figure out the cause. This should not have happened on first day in service and obviously this route needs to be cancelled for now and retested so they can figure out what went wrong. I have not seen details as to causation but it does seem like casualty rate will be high here and my guess is Amtrak rushed this route into service and failed to account for something which caused it to happen and I am not speculating on the root cause. But lets face it, if you have an accident on first day of service that is major, obviously there were fatal flaws made here, regardless of what they turn out to be.

Charger was leading, Genesis trailing.

They did extensive testing before opening the route, and did plenty of qualifying runs. It was not rushed.

This is obviously a bad one with potential major repercussions. Thoughts and prayers to everyone involved. Confirmation of fatalities aboard the train, no number yet. Per official, no fatalities among the multiple cars on the highway that were hit.

Seattle Times reporting 3 dead at this time. 70 on board. Sheriff Dept state the loss came from the cars that went into the woods, and apparently not the talgo thats upside down on the freeway. Hopefully and apparently it was empty.

As of a few moments ago, the cable news outlet of your choice is airing live coverage of the incident.

The leader was the 181

Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... r-olympia/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

King 5 Seattle: http://www.king5.com/mobile/article/tra ... 5?scroll=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Anyone know if Cameron Booth @transitmaps is in Seattle?