east point wrote:justalurker66 wrote:
The engineer did not jump out of the train when he saw another train coming. He was already off the train before the Amtrak entered the siding. (The conductor was still on the engine and ran to the back of the engine before being thrown clear by the impact.)
Maybe engineer was off loco and walking toward switch ?
That's a plausible hypothesis ... but at this point it's just speculation. the investigation will tell us that, though, for sure.
As for the Conductor, what the NTSB actually said was he saw the Amtrak coming into the siding and ran to the back of the locomotive, then was thrown off by the impact (the collision shoved the CSX freight backwards some 16 feet, I think they said).
Judging by where the collision was, where the wreckage was, and the fact that he survived, he was a very, very lucky man ... the only way for that to have occurred was that he got all the way back to the rear platform, and and around the end, when the impact happened ... there's just nowhere survivable on the engineer's side of that carbody.