Amtrak Derailment Leaves at Least 3 Dead in Washington State, Officials Say
- 6 years ago
Amtrak Derailment Leaves at Least 3 Dead in Washington State, Officials Say
DUPONT, Wash. — A passenger train on a newly opened Amtrak route jumped the tracks on an overpass south of Tacoma on Monday,
slamming rail cars into a busy highway, killing at least three people and injuring about 100 others, officials said.
Officials said the service is owned by the states of Washington
and Oregon, and operated by Amtrak, whereas the Point Defiance Bypass track is owned by Sound Transit, a regional transit agency, and dispatched by BNSF, the freight company that used to own the line.
Positive train control could have prevented some of the nation’s worst rail disasters, like the 2008 collision of a commuter train and a freight train in Los Angeles
that killed 25 people, or the 2015 derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia that went into a curve at more than twice the allowed speed, an accident that killed eight people.
Location of derailment
The Washington State Department of Transportation has said
that the entire Cascades route will have the system by mid-2018, but it was not clear whether it was in operation on Monday on any part of the line.
Backed by the state of Washington, Sound Transit, the regional transit agency, used $180 million from the 2009
federal stimulus package to buy an old 14.5-mile stretch of track and upgrade it for faster passenger service.
“It appears that all of the fatalities are contained in the rail cars
that went into the woods,” said Detective Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, adding that rescue workers were using chain saws to try to reach victims in those cars.
DUPONT, Wash. — A passenger train on a newly opened Amtrak route jumped the tracks on an overpass south of Tacoma on Monday,
slamming rail cars into a busy highway, killing at least three people and injuring about 100 others, officials said.
Officials said the service is owned by the states of Washington
and Oregon, and operated by Amtrak, whereas the Point Defiance Bypass track is owned by Sound Transit, a regional transit agency, and dispatched by BNSF, the freight company that used to own the line.
Positive train control could have prevented some of the nation’s worst rail disasters, like the 2008 collision of a commuter train and a freight train in Los Angeles
that killed 25 people, or the 2015 derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia that went into a curve at more than twice the allowed speed, an accident that killed eight people.
Location of derailment
The Washington State Department of Transportation has said
that the entire Cascades route will have the system by mid-2018, but it was not clear whether it was in operation on Monday on any part of the line.
Backed by the state of Washington, Sound Transit, the regional transit agency, used $180 million from the 2009
federal stimulus package to buy an old 14.5-mile stretch of track and upgrade it for faster passenger service.
“It appears that all of the fatalities are contained in the rail cars
that went into the woods,” said Detective Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, adding that rescue workers were using chain saws to try to reach victims in those cars.