NTSB: Amtrak crashed in Kansas on bent tracks

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: USA Today

Bart Jansen, USA TODAY 4:55 p.m. EDT April 7, 2016

WASHINGTON – An Amtrak derailment in Kansas last month that sent 28 people to the hospital occurred where track damage was traced to a grain truck, crash investigators said Thursday. ... Amtrak train 4 was heading from Los Angeles to Chicago when it derailed March 14 at 12:02 a.m. near Cimarron, Kansas, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The train has 130 passengers and 14 crew members.

Damage was estimated at more than $1.4 million to the train and the BNSF Railway track, according to investigators. Six cars derailed and four fell on their sides. A front-facing camera on the train showed the track shaped abnormally just before the crash, the investigators said in a preliminary report.

Tracks and railway ties were found out of place about 25 feet before the derailment, investigators said. Fresh tire tracks were found perpendicular to the rail line and flaked corn, which is used as cattle feed, was on the ground, investigators said.

The tire tracks were traced to Cimarron Crossing Feeders, where they matched a 2004 Kenworth International truck with fresh damage to its front bumper, investigators said.



In this photo provided by the National Transportation Safety Board on March 14, 2016, in Cimarron, Kan., a frontal view of an agricultural vehicle that damaged the rails involved in the Kansas Amtrak derailment. The truck used to deliver feed to a business where cattle are fattened hit a train track and shifted it at least a foot before an Amtrak train derailed in southwest Kansas and injured dozens of people, an investigator said. (Photo: AP)

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/07/ntsb-amtrak-crashed-kansas-bent-tracks/82761414/

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Here comes a rate increase.

NTSB issues early report on Amtrak derailment in Kansas

[uppityperson]

1. To shift the tracks a foot, it must've been felt by the truck driver.

[dembotoz]

2. bent rails in a bent state seems logical to me

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Amtrak sues Kansas feed yard over train derailment

CBS/AP/ April 10, 2016, 4:43 PM

Amtrak sues Kansas feed yard over train derailment

WICHITA, Kan.-- Amtrak has filed a federal lawsuit against a southwest Kansas feed yard, accusing it of gross negligence in relation to a train derailment that injured 28 passengers last month.

In the suit filed Friday by Amtrak and BNSF, the plaintiffs allege Cimarron Crossing Feeders failed to notify the railroad or law enforcement after one of the company's trucks slammed into the railroad road bed and displaced the tracks by more than a foot.

The train carrying 131 passengers and 14 crew was travelling from Los Angeles to Chicago when it derailed shortly after midnight along a straight stretch of tracks in flat farmland near Cimarron, a small community about 160 miles west of Wichita. Eight cars derailed and four of them ended up on their sides.

The lawsuit claims the truck was being loaded with grain when Cimarron's employees left it unattended on March 13, out of gear and without any brakes applied. It rolled downhill, crossed over U.S. 50 and slammed into the tracks.

[hexola]

4. Wow - that's REALLY gross negligence!!!

Gross negligence (no brakes) - on top of not reporting it!