Two people dead after Amtrak cars hit parked freight train
SC governor says passenger train was on wrong set of tracks
An Amtrak train apparently traveling on the wrong track struck a CSX freight train early Sunday in South Carolina, killing two Amtrak employees and injuring more than 100 people, Gov. Henry McMaster said.
It was the third deadly wreck involving Amtrak in less than two months.
“They weren’t supposed to be meeting like that, clearly,” McMaster said. “It appears that Amtrak was on the wrong track.” He said the CSX train seemed to be on its assigned track.
The wreck involving Amtrak Train 91, heading from New York to Miami, occurred at 2:35 a.m. in Cayce, South Carolina, about 10 miles south of Columbia, according to Derrec Becker of South Carolina Emergency Management.
The CSX train was parked on what appeared to be a side track when the Amtrak train slammed into it going about 59 mph, McMaster said. Of the 139 people on the Amtrak train, 116 were taken to hospitals, he said. Eight were Amtrak employees.
“Our information – and this is subject to correction – is that this was not the main (train) line,” McMaster said. “This was a loading track for a sidetrack where the collision took place.”
He described the freight train engines as “all torn up” and the Amtrak engine as “barely recognizable” from the impact.
One of the injured was in critical condition, and two were listed as serious, with the rest having minor injuries like cuts and bruises, said Steve Shelton, Palmetto health director of emergency preparedness.
“We know that they are shaken up quite a bit, and this is unlike anything else they’ve ever been through before,” Capt. Adam Myrick with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department told The State newspaper in Columbia. “We wanted to get them out of the cold, get them out of the weather.”
Temperatures were in the upper 30s at the time of the collision.
Myrick told USA TODAY that the crash happened in a mostly industrial area near the intersection of Interstate 26 and I-77.
Amtrak said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened” by the deaths and was cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board.
In a conference call with reporters, Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson said a signal system was not operational, and the train’s movements were being managed by a CSX dispatcher when it rearended the freight train. Although the train was behind schedule, it was not speeding to make up time, Anderson said.
Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher identified those killed as Michael Kempf, 54, of Savannah, Georgia, and Michael Cella, 36, of Orange Park, Florida. Kempf was the Amtrak engineer, and Cella was the conductor, she said.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said a team of investigators was dispatched to Sunday’s crash.
About 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled at the scene, Becker said. Hazmat crews were dispatched, and the spill was being contained. There was no threat to the public, he said.
It was the second major crash for Amtrak in less than a week. On Wednesday, a train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck in rural Virginia.
The crash killed one person in the truck and left others wounded.
In December, a passenger train derailed on an overpass near Seattle, with cars crashing into the highway below, killing three people.
In 2015, an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring more than 200.