Train shunted to disaster as crew made SAFETY fix

INVESTIGATORS looking into the Amtrak train crash that killed two workers in South Carolina said Monday that the wreck happened while safety switches were turned off so railway crews could make upgrades.

The Amtrak train, which collided with an unmanned freight train, was fatally redirected to a side track Sunday during the safety improvements.

National Transportation Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said the automated signals that would have warned Amtrak operators of impending danger had been turned off.

Railway crews had deactivated the switches to install a GPSbased system called Positive Train Control, which works with computers and wireless radios to automatically slow trains.

“It could have avoided this accident,” Sumwalt said of Positive Train Control. “That’s what it’s designed to do.”

The Amtrak train on the New York-to-Miami route slammed into an idle CSX train early Sunday, killing an Amtrak engineer and conductor and injuring scores of passengers.

The train was diverted to a side track south of Columbia, S.C., a few minutes after 2:30 a.m., Sumwalt told reporters, after a switch shifted it from the main line.

Engineer Michael Kempf, 54, and conductor Michael Cella, were killed in the wreck, and 116 of the 147 people on the train were taken to area hospitals.

Officials said the crash underscored the need for Positive Train Control, which is designed to block human error on the rails. It’s specifically geared toward preventing collisions, derailments and misaligned track switches.