Maybe the brakes failed, but that doesnt answer the question why was he going so fast in the first place. If he hadnt been speeding, there wouldnt be a need to brake. He wasnt speeding a little over the limit, he was well over the limit.
@alwaysamom - I saw that another body was found this morning at the wreck site. I am really, really hoping it is not your friend’s BIL.
Yes, at the point of impact the speed limit was 50 mph. However, in the stretch before it, the speed limit was 80 mph. What if the train accelerated rather than decelerating when he applied the brakes?
Look, the guy was probably speeding. But it may well be that there was a mechanical failure that he couldn’t anticipate. I’m just saying we ought to wait for the investigation’s results.
He was over the limit for that curve. We (or at least I) don’t know what the limit was on the track leading up to that curve.
They mentioned 80 mph. Not sure if it applies right before the curve or in general. Probably in general. To go from 80 to 50 seems a bit drastic.
I read in the NYT that the speed limit just prior to and right after the curve is 70mph.
The other thing is you don’t know how far back the speed limit drops, trains are not cars, they don’t accelerate and decelerate on a dime.If the speed limit drops from 70 to 50 MPH, I can guarantee you it is quite a distance before that curve.
Whatever the speed limit was before that curve,the driver was definitely going way too fast, if they hit the curve at 100 MPH as every source now seems to be indicating (calculated from video footage just before the crash scene, a train buff said it was doing around 101), he was over the speed limit even before that curve. Could it be a mechanical failure? It would take a lot of failures for this to be the result of mechanical failure. In a cab operators controls there are two basic units, the throttle (that controls speed by controlling how much power gets to the traction motors in the units or lead engines traction motors, if it is an engine pulling a coach), then there is a brake controller. If the train went runaway, if for some reason the controller malfunctioned, there are ways for the engineer to kill the power in an emergency stop situation (in the old days, there used to be a deadman’s pedal, that if the engineer lifted their foot, would kill the power automatically and stop the train,these days I think they have something else). Assuming the kill didn’t work, which I am highly dubious of, they could also have thrown the train into emergency braking mode, which apparently they didn’t do from anything I have read, the passengers didn’t report the train suddenly braking, apparently it ran ahead at full steam until it hit the curve.
Based on that, the cause that appears to be the likeliest is that the engineer for unknown reasons allowed the train to accelerate to a speed it shouldn’t have been doing at all within city limits,they may have had the throttle on too high and wasn’t paying attention, they may have been distracted (texting), right now we don’t know, apparently the engineer is claiming they don’t remember anything.
The real answers will come out of the investigation, the recorders on board will show what had happened before the crash, what the brakes were set at (if at all), what the throttle setting was, they will run blood tests on the engineer, they will check the engineers cell phone records to see if they were texting, the NTSB is pretty serious with these things. It could be that a mechanical failure happened that caused this in the end, but I suspect by now they would from the recorder data have seen if there was a mechanical problem, and the fact that they haven’t said anything about that means they are likely focusing on the engineer, building a case against them (obviously, just my opinion based on the bit I know about how trains operate, and from what train nuts have said about the way real trains operate, more than a few of them have been or are engineers)
@teriwtt Sadly, Teri, it was Bob’s body that was recovered this morning. Thank you to those who sent good thoughts and prayers.
^That’s awful. I am so sorry.
I’m so sorry, @alwaysamom So sad to have such loss for so many families.
@alwaysamom so sorry for your friends loss
Crazy that people die in train accidents. It is easy to assume that trains should be the safest transportation mode. It takes the loss of a close person to understand that danger looms everywhere. Must be terrible for the friends of alwaysmom.
A few years ago, a student of CMC was killed in a similarly senseless train crash. I remembered thinking how unusual it was … but it wasn’t. The school has made efforts to maintain his legacy:
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/math/7th-Atul-Vyas-Memorial-Lecture-Flyer.pdf
I’m so sorry. I’m very bothered by this. It just seems so wrong that you can be riding on a regular commuter train and then be dead. This on top of the pilot in Europe flying the plane into the mountains. It’s just so uncontrollable…
@alwaysamom - I am so very sorry for yours and your friend’s loss. This must be such a nightmare for his loved ones… one they won’t wake up from in a very long time.
@alwaysamom When I heard the news this morning, I was afraid this might be your friend. I am so sorry.
@alwaysamom So very sad and tragic for your friend who is a relative of Bob’s and of course for all other families affected. Lots of prayers for them at this time.
While accidents are a part of life, and while it is too soon to determine the cause of this accident, if the engineer was at fault, it would seem that more checks and balances will need to be put in place to avoid such things (apparently there is some device that was not set up in this situation that would override the human “error”) and same with lessons to be learned from the pilot who purposely flew a plane into a mountain or the missing plane that hasn’t been found that puts the pilot suspect too. These folks have a lot of people’s lives in their hands and while nothing is foolproof, hopefully lessons and new policies that would avoid such scenarios can come of these tragic events. I can’t imagine being related to someone who was killed on this train.
@alwaysmom, on last night 's Philly news Bob’s young teenage son, spoke about the family’s search for Bob, the son was so composed and well spoken. I thought this might be your friend’s relative. So tragic.
@alwaysamom – I’m so sorry for your friend’s loss. So very sad.
The train accelerated shortly before the incident, going from 70 mph to over 100 mph in less than a minute
AMTRAK says the automatic speed control system was installed outside Philly but it was not turned on. They didn’t have permission yet from the FCC for the higher bandwidth they needed on transmitters for them to work reliably.