Breaking: Amtrak train derails in central Miss.

[Cooley Hurd]

http://www.godesoto.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3902

<snip>
JACKSON — An Amtrak train has derailed, says Yazoo County Sheriff's dispatcher Mary Whisenton.

The incident happened about 7 p.m. on the Madison/Yazoo county lines. Five ambulances are on scene, but it is not known if there are injuries. However, a Jackson TV station reported the train was travelling at a low speed through the Big Black River swamps when it overturned.
</snip>

Could it be sabotage? :shrug:

[mmm]

1. I doubt it

[PaDUer]

2. That's what I was thinking...

isn't it odd that all these "accidents" are happening!

[skooooo]

3. what "accidents"?

[PaDUer]

8. I guess there hasn't been..

any train derailments or plane accidents??

[nodehopper]

12. not EVERYTHING is a conspiracy.

Accidents happen. Sometimes there is reason to suspect foul play. I don't think this is one of those cases.

You could say isn't it strange how all these CAR ACCIDENTS happen?

[ultramega]

22. speaking of car "accidents"

Athan Gibbs

http://www.tennessean.com/obits/archives/04/04/48330576.shtml

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/04/03/48307407.shtml

[UrbScotty]

4. What would be scary...

...is if a prominent Democrat was aboard.

[amazona]

5. trains derail frequently

I have contacts in that industry and I'll report back if they tell me anything different -- considering the location, there's a fair chance I'll know some of the safety people investigating this one. But I'll just point out that trains derail with surprising frequency and my first impulse is not to assume foul play.

[Cooley Hurd]

6. At low speed?

:shrug:

[Eye and Monkey]

7. Yes. Bridges over swamps tend to settle. Maintenance is ignored.

This might be unusual. Or it might be not that unusual.

Edit: After a search on +"train +"derail" and louisiana, mississippi, and alabama, I find that there's a derailment in the Gulf Coast area about every year. There's alot of swamps down here.

There's also a fair number of derailments in other areas of the country as well.

Of course, that doesn't rule out anything.

[PaDUer]

17. Do you know anything about this?

FBI investigates train derailment

http://www.kstatecollegian.com/ISSUES/v100/FA/n037/ap-AmtrakDerailment-21.html

[Eye and Monkey]

19. I don't know much about trains or home-grown terrorists.

I just live in the region when I'm not overseas, and I remembered hearing about a few other derailments in the area.

[Tansy_Gold]

24. The Amtrak derailment in Arizona was sabotage

I've been out to the wreck site several times, and I must say, it wouldn't take much sabotage to wreck a train out there.

The spikes that hold the rails to the ties are so loose you can pull them out by hand, then drop them back in. In many places where there should be three spikes, ther are only two, sometimes only one.

The tracks are littered with metal balls, slightly smaller than a golf ball. I picked one up and wondered what it was, until I found another and then another and then another. They are ball bearings that fall out of train wheels.

And just to make things even more interesting, the Hyder - Agua Caliente area is only a few miles from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, one of the largest nuclear power facilities in the world.

Just food for thought. . . .

[eadgbeAxe]

9. Rove.

Just what he needs right now to distract Criminal Condi and the illegal war. I wonder which freeper he hired to do it?

[nodehopper]

13. God, not EVERYTHING is a freeper conspiracy

Accidents happen. Trains derail. Cars crash. People slip on ice. Kittens get caught in the trees.

[PaDUer]

16. Ya...

and planes crash w/ democrats on board.

[nodehopper]

21. I am not saying

that there are no conspiracies...just that not everything is a conspiracy...that's a logical fallacy of false generalization.

An Amtrak derailed on a system that suffers from poor maintenance does not have necessarily anything to do with all the Democrats killed in plane crashes.

[burrowowl]

10. No sabotage

The poor condition and lack of maintenance of American railways would shock the hell out of the French and Germans.

[azmesa207]

11. Amtrak train Derails

Being a retired railroad Engineer I doubt that it was Sabatoge it sounds like they had a slow order through the swamp and the track probably got a Sunkink or a brokenm rail probably just poor track conditions

[Must_B_Free]

14. I'm sure it was "ice on the rails" just like Wellstone...

[PaDUer]

15. Amtrak Passenger Train Derails in Yazoo County

An Amtrak passenger train has derailed in Yazoo County just beyond the Madison County line near the Big Black River between Flora and Bentonia. The accident happened around 7:00 PM.

WLBT has received reports of 12 to 15 injuries and at least one fatality. Between 82 and 90 people are believed to have been traveling on the train which was northbound from New Orleans headed to Chicago.
-snip-

more-
http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1767455&nav=1L7tM6Ty

[amazona]

32. yes, this sounds right to me

I haven't had a chance to ask around but when I do, I wouldn't be surprised to hear it described just that way.

[Snellius]

18. Amtrak is an accident waiting to happen

I travel on Amtrak quite a bit and have watched over the last several years as the hard-pressed Amtrak workers try to hold that railroad together with slow-starvation funding and dwindling support. The biggest problem is that, to save money, Amtrak on many runs has to share tracks with the freights, who own the rails, and maintain them not so much for safety as for cost efficiency. Sooner or later, it's going to take a truly tragic accident before Congress, and Amtrak haters like John McCain, wake up to the problem.

[belle]

20. Right.

[DemoTex]

23. Was it the Bu$h campaign train?

Sinking, metaphorically, in the swamp of a lower Mississippi black-water river?

[Eye and Monkey]

26. Well, Unca Dick was down in New Orleans yesterday.

But there's no duck hunting in Madison County this time of year.

However, just about the nearest town to Flora, MS, is - you guessed it. Clinton, MS.

[PaDUer]

34. When I first read your post...

I thought it said "dick hunting"..LOLOL.

[mobuto]

25. No, probably not sabotage, but lack of maintenance

Which I guess could be called Congressional sabotage. You refuse to fund Amtrak and of course there are derailments.

[davsand]

27. I've taken that train any number of times.

The City runs thru Champaign to Chicago--and it IS the morning train you take if you want to make it to Chicago. Up here in Illinois, it isn't terrible track--but it could be much better. I'll put it this way--that train runs at a high rate of speed and any minor bump can be felt. You DO sway from side to side--and that is an indicator that the tracks are not level.

I used to work in an office upstairs from the train station, and it was not uncommon to see folks wait for a few hours because The City had been delayed someplace south of us on the line.

My last train ride was a major pain because I was coming home on the 8 pm train, and the main bridge out of Chicago had burned earlier in the day. What was supposed to be a two and a half hour ride took took six hours...

I was sitting at a rail crossing one day on that same line of track, and I watched a freight train de-rail. This particular section is in a residential area, and it is just north of the main station in town so they go fairly slow thru there.

I looked up to see how long my wait was gonna be and saw the train cars swaying from side to side. At that point, the first car tipped ever so slowly over and then it was a chain reaction in some kind of slow motion chain reaction. When it was all over, there were about eight cars tipped over and laying along the tracks less than 100 yards from where I sat.

I drove away from there with a new personal policy that I stop a lot further from the rail crossing than I used to.

I doubt seriously that this was something created by anyone--I tend to think it is just another illustration of how badly decayed our rail system is in this country.

Amtrak was reporting today that trains will be running normally on our section of that route by tomorrow.

My heart goes out to those injured in this most recent event.

Laura

[funkybutt]

28. dead woman said to have been in NO for funeral

the husband of the woman who is dead as a result of the derailment said that she was in New Orleans for a funeral...that sucks

[yellowcanine]

29. The * administration has been cutting Amtrak's budget

so they don't have enough money to do proper maintenance on trains and tracks. That is the reason for most derailments. Expect more of this. A good reason to stay off of Amtrak as long as * is president.

[mmm]

30. good advice

I'll take it

[jus_the_facts]

33. Don't fly either....they've now begun privatizing the security again......

....so they won't have to follow any guidelines set up since 9/11...read about it in GD a couple weeks ago...there's no such thing as proper maintenance or standards anymore...everything that had been bein' done to protect people from the ALMIGHTY CORPORATIONS was trashed during the Raygun years....never to return..

[info being]

31. "Breaking" is right.