Northeast Regional 188 - Accident In Philadelphia

Everyone:

This is quite the news to wake up to this morning...

When I saw the first pictures of this wreck I knew exactly where it was - Frankford Junction just east of Shore
Tower - I noted the now-closed Wheatsheaf Lane pedestrian bridge in some photos...

I will add my condolences here to all involved may it be crew or passengers...

I am now listening to a news conference being held by the City of Philadelphia and the NTSB...
This should be a thorough investigation and the cause(s) will be identified...

The damage to the catenary and some tracks - and removing the wrecked cars from the scene along
with the crash investigation - is going to take time and it may be until the weekend (5/16-17) when service
is finally fully restored through the Frankford Junction area...

I also thought about the 1943 PRR Congressional derailment noting the location of this wreck and the cause
of that accident was a burned off friction journal box on a coach - highly unlikely to be the cause of this one
but speed may have well been a factor on this reduced speed curve...

I noted postings about alternate train service and the most logical route is using the River Line from Trenton
to Camden and then PATCO into Philadelphia...I noted mention of SEPTA increasing service on the West Trenton
Line - that is being done as a alternative for Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County commuters and NOT for
passengers looking to connect to NJT or Amtrak trains to go north - you only have the sporadically operated NJT
608 Bus or a potentially expensive taxi ride into Trenton operating from West Trenton...

MACTRAXX

When I used to ride Shore Line East commuter train, which operated on the NEC between New Haven and New London, it would apply the brakes automatically for curves with a speed limit. The engineer showed me how if she did nothing, it would slow itself down with no action taken by the engineer. But I have no idea if that is a thing on this curve for that train. I know it will do it for signals of course. But this is just a speed limit thing for a curve, which I have seen in other places on the NEC. If such a system is in place there with a 50mph limit, I have a hard time believing the train hit this curve going 90mph. That said, I have a hard time believing any other reasonable cause. I don't think it was a cow.

Could they run the Florida trains up the old Reading, behind diesels? I don't know the specific track layouts, but get on the RDG in Philly, get off at Woodburn, take the freight line into Morrisville, then over the bridge into Trenton? You would need diesels (with HEP) between Woodburn and Morrisville/Trenton. Using them from Philly to Trenton would also keep them off SEPTA's catenary and subs, which may not be of sufficient capacity for that much increased traffic. It would require cooperation between Amtrak, SEPTA, CSX and NJT, but should be a possible solution..

Not to be the crank here about replacing the Amfleets, but I would like to point out that the tiny Amfleet windows are a major problem during any sort of major accident. It's been mentioned in the media that the "jaws of life" had to be used to get a number of people out of the train. Would this have been necessary if the carriages had windows as large as on a modern train? Windows large enough to comfortably navigate a stretcher. The Amfleet trains are not only outdated, but this incident reveals they are also not fit for purpose in terms of safety requirements.

ajl1239 wrote:Not to be the crank here about replacing the Amfleets, but I would like to point out that the tiny Amfleet windows are a major problem during any sort of major accident. It's been mentioned in the media that the "jaws of life" had to be used to get a number of people out of the train. Would this have been necessary if the carriages had windows as large as on a modern train? Windows large enough to comfortably navigate a stretcher. The Amfleet trains are not only outdated, but this incident reveals they are also not fit for purpose in terms of safety requirements.

My guess is based on the mangling seen in the one car, jaws of life would have been required regardless.

But you're right, a cited issue with the Amfleet 1s is the size of the windows.
Any replacement equipment will have larger windows.

Of course they aren't going to meet newer requirements, but without a readily available replacement at hand, there is nothing they can do about it right now.

EDM5970 wrote:Could they run the Florida trains up the old Reading, behind diesels? I don't know the specific track layouts, but get on the RDG in Philly, get off at Woodburn, take the freight line into Morrisville, then over the bridge into Trenton? You would need diesels (with HEP) between Woodburn and Morrisville/Trenton. Using them from Philly to Trenton would also keep them off SEPTA's catenary and subs, which may not be of sufficient capacity for that much increased traffic. It would require cooperation between Amtrak, SEPTA, CSX and NJT, but should be a possible solution..

Amtrak and CSX severed their ties at ZOO Interlocking years ago so that wouldn't be feasible as you'd have to back down to PHIL from 30th St to access the High Line.

I've taken the Patco/NJT Riverline/NJT Corridor service multiple times (very cheap). Adds about an hour's travel, but was a good alternative. Can't imagine it being able to handle an excessive load like what could happen.

I expect many to just fly.

I'm surprised signals don't protect locations with permanent speed restrictions such as this curve. I know engineers must be qualified to run lines, and must know about locations such as this, but I figured they would have signals as additional protection. Is it a fairly arduous task to add signals to locations like this,if they in fact they don't exist? I can see a recommendation being made to have permanent speed restrictions protected by signals, and thus subject to penalty braking applications that could help prevent overspeed accidents.

I just did the math watching the video. Obviously this isn't precise down to the perfect MPH. But it was 4 seconds worth of amfleet on the right edge of the surveillance video as the train passed by. 510 feet of cars in 4 seconds is 128 feet per second. Which is 87mph into in 50mph curve. Of course this isn't precise. But there is no margin of error that makes that 50mph or even close to it. Sadly this looks like an oops, too fast.

ekt8750 wrote:

EDM5970 wrote:Could they run the Florida trains up the old Reading, behind diesels? I don't know the specific track layouts, but get on the RDG in Philly, get off at Woodburn, take the freight line into Morrisville, then over the bridge into Trenton? You would need diesels (with HEP) between Woodburn and Morrisville/Trenton. Using them from Philly to Trenton would also keep them off SEPTA's catenary and subs, which may not be of sufficient capacity for that much increased traffic. It would require cooperation between Amtrak, SEPTA, CSX and NJT, but should be a possible solution..

Amtrak and CSX severed their ties at ZOO Interlocking years ago so that wouldn't be feasible as you'd have to back down to PHIL from 30th St to access the High Line.

Although they could run it through the tunnel, with a diesel and electric loco and switch to diesel at temple, that won't overload SEPTA's system for very long, and AEM-7s run on septa already.

Terrible tragedy. For the families and friends, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=KJV

With regard to the speed- from looking at the map, I see that a train coming from 30th Street would go through another curve, almost as sharp, approximately 1.8 miles before Frankford Junction. Is that even enough distance to accelerate to 100+ mph?

Looking at where the cars ended up, why did what I am assuming was the first car end up so separated from everything else? The locomotive ended up pretty far from the rest of the train, but still remained somewhat in line. Yet that one car is completely dislocated. Did the locomotive and the rest of the train separate as soon as it left the track?

When the first car hit the catenary tower, the sprinter probably just ripped off and kept skidding away.

Unconfirmed reports of 5 additional bodies. Didn't think they'd be able to thoroughly search that mangled car until the day time, anyway.