Empire Builder on the Ground in MT

It is not a good idea to put a cart before the horse. "Deploys crossing gates"? Some sort of automatic system that stops at lesser protected crossings, blocks the road without blocking the track and then undeploys when the train is past? Might as well suggest flying trains.

Yeah, still not sure why we're discussing insoection drones or carts. The line where this happened sees 20 + trains a day. That isnt exactly an unused branchline.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

I know we're getting antsy for answers from the NTSB, but we got to wait for that report. That will have all the details.

As probably mentioned before, the details I'm looking for is what happened between the train before the Empire Builder and the accident. Did that train knock the rail out or did it sunkink afterwards? Evidence so far leans to sudden rail damage or deforming.

It will be hard to say. The NTSB should have head end video from both trains but there is no FRED video available to show the state of the rails behind the freight train. So if there is damage or deformity noted on the Amtrak head end camera it will be an educated guess whether that occurred after the train ahead or because of the train ahead. There could be damage or deformity seen on the freight head end camera that that freight train somehow survived. There could also be no damage or deformity seen on either camera.

Three months after the incident. Perhaps we should have asked for a little more patience for Christmas? When there is an obvious issue there is usually a preliminary release. Nothing obvious about the cause in this incident. Just the facts - train somehow lost contact with rail. Details to be determined. Still.