OK, here's my description of what happened, based upon the pics I've seen and some info I've read.
Of course, there are no "official" reports yet, and you probably won't even hear about when they come out, so this is "my version" -- subject to change, but I think all the necessary facts are obvious.
First, I don't think it's "terrorism" of any kind.
Secondly, forget the "early reports" about "something on the track". I don't believe there was anything there.
Before going further, some questions:
Have you ever driven an unfamiliar stretch of highway?
One with at least a few treacherous curves?
How did you know how fast to go?
How did you know when to slow down?
You'll reply, "there are warning signs that tell you when a curve is coming up and advise you what speed to take it". And of course, there are.
Something to remember:
Passenger trains moving at speed do not slow down as quickly as can a car, or even a large truck. You can slow a car from 70 to 30 within several hundred feet, but it might take a train 1/3-1/2 mile to do the same.
We know the train was moving about 80+/-mph at the time of the derailment.
We know that the "normal track speed" for this railroad was 79mph. The difference between 79 and 80 (or 81)mph is insignificant, not a factor, could be a discrepancy in the locomotive speedometer, etc. So ignore that.
The train involved was not using "regular" passenger equipment. Out there, they use something called "Talgo" cars, a shorter, lighter car originally used in Europe.
Something else to be aware of:
This is BRAND NEW RAILROAD, and this was the first day of scheduled operation. This particular stretch of track is a new "bypass" that was built to get the "Coaster" passenger trains off of a congested freight line.
As such, it is "totally new territory" to the train crews. Newly constructed passenger-speed track.
Not "old, familiar" railroad. (I'm wondering if there had been any track there before at all, perhaps an old branch line? Might be completely new track. Not sure about that).
What this means is that all the engineers working on it had just finished "qualifying", i.e., learning the track, stations, speeds, slowdowns, etc.
As a younger guy, I did plenty of this myself. One made trips, took notes, went over things "in your head". You wanted to be able to "recite the entire trip" without actually taking it.
But still, "new railroad" can be just that.
Now, let's consider the physical characteristics of the scene.
Some good pics have already been posted, some in the messages above.
Here's a screenshot from google that shows the general area:
(note: to properly see all of this image, you may need to scroll to the right or just widen the entire page)
The railroad is coming from a straightaway (to the right out of the picture), then curving left to cross over the interstate. Although the curve wouldn't seem overly sharp to non-railroad folk, it's moderately tight.
Also note at the extreme right where the track comes into the pic, the change from concrete ties (lighter color) to wooden ties (darker).
Let's look at the curve (and at that transition point) from another angle:
A telephoto lens compresses the perspective, but you can still see that the transition into the curve is abrupt. Also pay specific attention to the sign you see to the right of the guys standing there:
T-30P-30The operating rules out there are different from here in the east, but the meaning of the sign is obvious to me. It's telling us that the speed on that curve is 30 for Talgo equipment ("T") and 30 for regular passenger equipment ("P").
OK, let's take a look at post-wreck pics.
Now you can see the sharpness of the curve in proportion to the train trying to negotiate it.
That IS NOT a 79mph curve. No way. (The sign told us that)
IMPORTANT: the locomotive you see above was at THE REAR of the train -- NOT on the head end. The train had 14 cars with an engine on each end. In the pic, the train was moving away from us, not towards us.
Now, let's move in and change the viewing angle:
Now we can see the engine that was leading (it's topmost, just below the fire truck).
Looks like when it hit the curve at 81mph, it jumped the track and tried to keep going in a [relatively] straight direction, right through the trees (that can be seen in the very first pic posted above). Plowing down the trees actually ripped the top off the locomotive.
If a train hits a curve too fast it doesn't always derail. Curves are posted with speeds that can be negotiated comfortably (both from the viewpoint of equipment wear and passenger comfort), but there's still a safety margin involved. For 30mph, I would guess (and it's only a guess) that a train might make it at 55-60mph without "going off", but it
wouldn't be "comfortable".
However, get much above that and the forces of physics come into play.
All that weight and energy, trying to go straight, when it tries to be forced into a curve that sharp... well... the wheel flanges may just override the outer rail, and...
it will keep going straight.And that's why you see where the lead engine ended up. Looks like it plowed a lot of dirt up ahead before it came to rest.
The lead engine looks like it took a few cars with it, but somewhere a coupling broke loose, and the remaining cars hung onto the rails a little further, before coming off themselves and going in all directions. These are the cars that ended up coming over the bridge closer to us. Looks like they "got pushed along" by the weight and momentum of the REAR locomotive, which appears to be the only piece of equipment remaining on the rails. Because they are lighter-weight "Talgo" cars, they don't have the crash strength that regular "Amfleet" coaches would have.
So... that's what happens when you run into a 30mph curve at just over 80.
But... why?
Well,
Occam's razor applies-- the engineer making the first regular trip on brand-new territory forgot he was coming up on an important speed restriction. The forces of nature took over after that.
Remember that this is completely new territory, that crews have just
"learned it from scratch". Not something that one had been over and over for years, until running on it became routine.
Think back to my earlier comment about driving an unfamiliar road with dangerous curves.
If you caught the warning sign in time, you slowed down and were in the clear.
Miss the warning sign... and things might get dicey for a moment.
Now... take a look at
WHERE THEY PUT THE WARNING SIGN in the second pic above.
Right before the curve!
Sure does help one to remember and comply when you're coming up at it at 79mph, eh.....?
There's one missing piece of information I don't have (due to the differences in operating rules and how the placement of signs at speed restrictions is governed in that particular territory). We can't see and we don't know if there was an "advance warning sign" posted for speed restrictions in that territory.
This practice changes from railroad to railroad (again depending on which rule book they're using). Here in the northeast, on Metro-North and CSX (formerly Conrail), permanent speed restrictions aren't marked with signs "by the wayside". They're published in the timetable instructions, and that's it. An engineer is expected to know them, and that's that.
On at least one railroad I ran over as an Amtrak engineer (The Central Vermont, which used the Canadian operating rule book), permanent speed restrictions were posted with a sign (telling you the speed) 6,000 feet in advance of the restriction itself, with a yellow sign at the actual "entrance" to the restriction. It gave you at least -some- notice that you were coming up to a slowdown.
But in much of the other territory I worked on, there were no markings for permanent restrictions at all. The only signs posted were for "temporary" restrictions due to track work.
When I started, Amtrak didn't have warning signs, either. In recent years, they put up signs on the Shore Line between New Haven and Boston with permanent restrictions -- it was a good idea, gave some reminder of curves ahead.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that the only warning signs posted on this new bypass are like the one we see in the pic above --
too late, too late.This line is almost certainly going to get "positive train control", which WOULD have forced a slowdown if the engineer missed it. But it's not installed and in service as of yet. So the engineer was running on "fixed signals alone", and it was up to him to control the speed of the train. Nothing unusual about this, that's how trains have been run for going on 200 years. It's what made the job of being an engineer unique, a position of some responsibility and respect.
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and then at some date in the future (after the general public has long forgotten) issue a report of its findings. They also may make recommendations for changes in operating practices that might serve to prevent similar accidents in the future.
If I was the one making the recommendations, it would be for a uniform system of placing advance warning to permanent speed restrictions like this one. A sign placed far enough in advance of the restriction to give the engineer time to react and comply with the restriction.
Of course, one can ignore signs, in which case they won't make a difference.
But I believe they might have helped in this instance.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
