Derailed train’s route raised concerns

UNITED STATES: The Amtrak train that derailed yesterday was making the first trip for paying passengers over upgraded tracks in what was promised as a quicker run between Seattle and Portland, Oregon.

The train was travelling a route occasionally used by freight trains until US$181 million worth of improvements, which local officials opposed, opened the stretch of line to passenger travel.

At least six people on the train were killed, authorities said, when 13 carriages jumped the tracks, setting off a chain reaction in which several vehicles on the Interstate 5 highway below were also hit.

While the cause of the crash will take months to establish, even people who tried to stop the new route on safety grounds said the derailment surprised them.

Opponents said the route would expose vehicles and pedestrians to higher-speed passenger trains at level crossings in the small city of Lakewood, just north of the crash site. ‘‘They weren’t worried about a train derailing,’’ said John Niles of the Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, which joined local elected officials in opposing the project.

Lakewood officials unsuccessfully sued in 2013 to stop the Point Defiance Bypass project, which redirected passenger trains from a winding route along Puget Sound that competes with freight traffic and squeezes through single-track tunnels.

A federal official briefed on the investigation said preliminary signs indicated that the train may have hit something before going off the track about 65 kilometres south of Seattle. The official was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

While it will take investigators months to determine the precise cause, speed may have been a factor.

Moments before the derailment, the train was travelling at 130.5kmh, according to transitdocs.com, which maps train speeds using data from Amtrak’s train tracker app. The maximum speed drops from 127kmh to 48kmh for passenger trains just before the tracks curve to cross Interstate 5, according to a chart prepared by the Washington State Department of Transportation. – AP

PHOTO: AP Derailed carriages lie on Interstate 5 alongside smashed vehicles after an Amtrak high-speed train derailed on an overpass near Tacoma, Washington.