Engineer was talking about speed before crash

SEATTLE — Video from the cab of the Amtrak train that hurtled off the tracks in Washington state, killing three people and injuring dozens, shows that the engineer did not appear to be using a cellphone or any other personal electronic device just before the derailment, federal investigators said Friday.

The video and audio captured from a camera inside the cab also revealed that the engineer was commenting about the train’s speed just before the train crashed while traveling 78 mph in a 30 mph zone. But authorities did not provide a transcript of what he said, saying only in a summary that “about six seconds prior to the derailment, the engineer made a comment regarding an over-speed condition.”

The video also showed that the engineer did not place the train’s brake handle in the emergency-braking mode, according to the preliminary details of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The video recording “ended as the locomotive was tilting and the crew was bracing for impact” south of Seattle on Monday, the safety board said.

The train was carrying 85 passengers and crew members as it made its inaugural run along a fast, new 15-mile bypass route. Officials have said that another person was inside the locomotive’s cab being trained by the engineer.

Federal investigators have gathered data from the locomotive’s event data recorder as well as inward- and outward-facing cameras. They said their full investigation could take more than a year.

NTSB board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said the locomotive’s emergency brake went off automatically and was not manually activated.

Rail-safety experts have said the engineer should have activated the brake about a minute before the train reached the curve posted for 30 mph, and that not doing do strongly suggested that he may have been distracted. The engineer, who was among the injured, has not been publicly identified. Investigators have said they plan to speak with him soon.