Train may have been struck before it derailed, officials say.

[elleng]

Source: NYTimes

Assistant conductor thinks she heard engineer tell another train operator. FBI called on to look at it.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/us/amtrak-train-may-have-been-struck-before-it-derailed-officials-say.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[notadmblnd]

1. what does that have to do with how fast it was going?

Are they saying the projectile knocked the train of the tracks?

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. It certainly could have distracted the engineer.

This is an interesting development.

[Helen Borg]

5. Or perhaps he thought he was under fire....

And sped up to get the hell outta that area...

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. Not likely, but

it could account for him not paying attention to the upcoming speed restriction.

[Gore1FL]

4. It may raise other safety concernes that need to be corrected.

I'm just speculating.

[Helen Borg]

8. Snipers near the tracks?...

[Gore1FL]

9. I was thinking more along the lines of overhead wires,

but snipers sound like a better plot-line. We should go with that and make someone on the train a double agent for ISIS and the IRA.

(You know as soon as I post this, alarms will go off and infowars!)

[notadmblnd]

30. how bout kids throwing rocks?

I'd believe that before I'd believe in snipers

[wordpix]

32. snipers, rock throwing, anything like that could happen b/c

you add nutcases + tracks that are wide open to the public = lack of security. What's needed is a total infrastructure overhaul. We now have security at airlines, museums, Capitol, etc. but there is no security in rail travel. NONE.

[swilton]

33. So now we invest in train security

rather than high speed rail and infrastructure.....

[wordpix]

36. do both, stop the interminable wars & tax the rich

their fair share.

[Oktober]

39. How would you secure 100s and 1000s of miles of track from rifle fire?

[notadmblnd]

29. I know- but it doesn't explain why the train was going twice as ast as it should have.

[jtuck004]

2. By a tailwind? n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

10. The Septa Train damage was reported (but now there's another Amtrak train damaged)...

The Septa window -



http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150514_SEPTA_train_hit_by_projectile_before_Amtrak_crash.html

The Septa Regional rail looks like this -



But there's a report I just found on Slate about a southbound Amtrak Train (#2173) that apparently also got hit by something in the same corridor around the same timeframe -

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/13/septa_projectile_two_philly_trains_suffered_window_damage_around_the_same.html



Having ridden the regional rails for years (back in the '60s/'70s, they were Penn Central & Reading RR), it's not uncommon for kids to throw stuff at the trains (the same idiots who would drop rocks off of overpasses)... Only thing in this instance is that this occurred at night when it was dark. It could be rocks from the rocky bed of the tracks that may have gotten kicked up if against the rails and with enough vibration...Who knows...?

[cynzke]

24. How About.....

A sling shot and heavy duty ball bearings? Seems it would require some skill? I could see teenagers pulling a stunt like that.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. I don't think the youngsters today even know what a "slingshot" is

let alone usage of one, at least here in the city. The issue here is that this happened at night - not at twilight, but after 9 pm. If you have kids or teens walking the length of some of these tracks that abut undeveloped areas (at least on the other side of the fencing as much of this corridor has fences along the track embankment), then it's easy to pick up a rock and throw.

[Hoppy]

11. I used to ride Erie Lackawanna from Newark to Millburn.

Little bastards would throw rocks at the train windows.

[840high]

16. yes and put pennies on the track.

[jmowreader]

12. War story follows...

The Army used to send troops to Fort Drum, New York, for winter training and we shipped our vehicles there by rail. We had to completely cover all the glass on the vehicles with cardboard padding to keep "the punks in Philadelphia" from breaking it out with thrown objects.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. The auto plants ship most new cars by rail ...

... and the cars were routinely pelted.

By mid 1970's most car-hauling freight cars had protective steel sides.

[elleng]

14. Thanks. Punks may still be there.

[jmowreader]

17. I have a hard time believing they caused the wreck, tho

This CAN'T have been the first time he had rocks thrown at his cab.

According to CNN, he was applying "full emergency brakes" just before the crash. The New York Times claims the train "slowed only slightly" after he did this. He's been running this route since 2010, so there's no question he knows the speed limits - I did a little reading about railroad engineer licensing, and it appears that an engineer has to be certified on every route he or she operates over.

So I came up with a weird thought. Follow along and see if this makes sense:

The locomotive he was driving is a Siemens ACS-64. You can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak_Cities_Sprinter

This machine draws the electricity it needs to power its traction motors from overhead cables. The juice runs from the pantograph system on top of the train into a power converter - it has two to keep the paying customers from having to get out and push if one of them breaks - and from there into the motors. This is what the "power converters" do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-frequency_drive

The drives probably have five operating regimes: initial starting, acceleration, speed maintenance, deceleration and stopping. We know the train had just left 30th Street Station, which means the train would have been in the Initial Starting regime very soon before the wreck. It would then, if all went well, shift into Acceleration mode to get it up to 50 mph and then into Steady State mode through the curve. But what would happen if the power converter got stuck in Initial Starting mode?

[Helen Borg]

18. It would keep accelerating?

[jmowreader]

20. Yeah, that's the general idea

It should go into its 8600-horse Super Mode until the train has some momentum, then downshift to regular-power acceleration mode until it's at the speed they want to use, and finally go into cruise mode...if it somehow stayed in Super Mode it would hit 100mph in short order.

[MADem]

21. Everyone was so eager to "Richard Jewell" this engineer in the media...

Wouldn't it be something if you've guessed correctly, and that guy is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing?

[Helen Borg]

23. Sounds like a plausible scenario.

Those things must fail from time to time...

[Chemisse]

27. Interesting idea.

I hope they cover that possibility in the investigation.

[BumRushDaShow]

26. "We know the train had just left 30th Street Station"

The location of the Frankford Junction curve is miles and miles away from 30th Street Station (which is at 30th & Market Sts). And the train passed through North Philadelphia Station (blowing its horn) before heading further north and east towards Frankford junction.

The route goes from 30th Street (which is in West Philly) northeastward through North Philly (which is actually a "central" location in the city), and towards Frankford Ave in the "Lower Northeast" as it is dubbed (and the area where the curve is located), and that is probably close to 7 or 8 miles of route. We're talking literally going from one side of the city to the other (via a slight diagonal) and he would have crossed the Schuylkill River via a bridge not long after leaving 30th Street (where the station is right next to that river), to get on his way. It's usually slow-going and congested for trains around that 30th Street area.

Watching the coverage this week, I have seen many reporters just stumbling over this city and its size. A bunch assumed this happened outside of the city for some reason. Others were reporting that patients were taken "to every hospital in the city" (which is just ludicrous). Still others were claiming that the entire city's responders were at the scene (which is even more ludicrous).

We're not an itty bitty city like Boston or Baltimore or D.C. We are the 2nd largest city on the east coast behind NYC. Any further east "outside of the city" as was claimed by some, and they would have been talking about New Jersey on the other side of the Delaware River (as the crash location is located right near the Delaware River and the Betsy Ross Bridge).

[jmowreader]

34. Thanks, I found that out later last night

It took a LOT of searching to find the exact location of the crash.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. I made a (hasty) map

Last edited Sat May 16, 2015, 02:53 PM - Edit history (1)

The red circle at the bottom left corner is 30th Street Station. The red line is the actual train track route, which crosses the Schuylkill River via a bridge. The red circle about half-way along the route is North Philadelphia Station (some Amtrak trains do stop there to pick up the daily Philly --> NYC commuters who transfer over from the regional rails. Finally, the red circle in the upper right corner is the curve (filled with yellow) where the accident took place. The trains tend to run slower out of 30th Street, across the bridge, past the Zoo, and start picking up speed just before North Philadelphia station. Once they are through that station, they really pick up the pace.

Also since this was a Google map, that route running along the bottom is from 30th Street to the same location, except along the Vine Street Expressway (I-676) through downtown Philly, then north along I-95, which runs along the Delaware river.

Edit to add map of the whole city for perspective (the light yellow shows the boundary of the city proper, where it says "Drexel" right above the "Univ. of Penn" is where 30th Street Station is, where you see "Temple Univ." is near North Philadelphia Station, and where you see the "Betsy Ross" bridge, is a couple blocks from the crash site) -



As a sidenote, the other side of the Delaware river is Chris Christie land.

[bananas]

15. "Investigators found damage to the left side of the windshield."

[LisaL]

19. The train did crash, so this damage could have come from the crash.

[jtuck004]

22. If the glass and perhaps an object can be found in the locomotive, instead of all the glass

being outside (where it might go when the car rolled), it could point to something before the wreck.

There was a fire, I think, so it depends on what it got to. I wonder if someone threw just a rock (which doesn't seem like it might lead to an acceleration and braking) or perhaps a concussion grenade, pipe bomb, fired projectile, any of which could be far different.

Or maybe just a big piece of metal from a nearby construction project?

[LisaL]

28. Whatever projectile (if any) went through the window, it shold still be in the cabin.

Should have been easy enough to find.

[Wellstone ruled]

31. Two things,

If the impact on the windshield caused the Engineer to suddenly jerk the throttle to max,or did the on board computer go wacko which is known to happen and the operator could not do his over ride in time. This Guy did not do something stupid,this was passion in life.

[WestSideStory]

37. Anxiously waiting for Nutter's apology

[LisaL]

38. Doesn't seem like an assistant conductor could

have overheard anything of the sort. It's not in any of the recordings.


"But so far, officials have interviewed dispatchers and listened to dispatch recordings and have “heard no communication at all from the Amtrak engineer to the dispatch center to say that something had struck his train,” Sumwalt said on yesterday’s morning news programs. Nor did the engineer of a nearby commuter train that was struck recall any conversation between the crew of his train and Amtrak 188, he said."
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/national/northeast/2015/05/fbi_probes_amtrak_wreckage