Crash kills 2 Amtrak workers
Dozens injured as train hits equipment on track
Chester, Pa. — An Amtrak train struck a piece of heavy equipment just south of Philadelphia on Sunday, causing a derailment that killed two Amtrak workers and sent more than 30 passengers to hospitals, authorities said.
Train 89 was heading from New York to Savannah, Ga., about 8 a.m. when it hit the equipment that was on the track in Chester, about 15 miles outside Philadelphia, officials said. The impact derailed the lead engine of the train, which was carrying more than 300 passengers and seven crew members.
Chester Fire Commissioner Travis Thomas said two people were killed. A National Transportation Safety Board official confirmed that one was the operator of the equipment. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Amtrak board Chairman Anthony Coscia told him that the other person killed was a supervisor and both were Amtrak employees.
NTSB investigator Ryan Frigo said at an evening news conference that the event data recorder and forward-facing and inwardfacing video from the locomotive have been recovered.
He said the locomotive engineer was among those taken to hospitals. Officials said earlier that none of the injuries was deemed life-threatening.
Schumer said it is unclear whether the equipment was being used for regular maintenance, which usually is scheduled on Sunday mornings because there are fewer trains on the tracks, or whether it was clearing debris from high winds that hit the area overnight. But he said Amtrak has “a 20-step protocol” for having such equipment, described by Amtrak as a backhoe, on the track, and no trains are supposed to go on a track when equipment is present.
“Clearly this seems very likely to be human error,” Schumer said, calling for Amtrak to review its processes. “There is virtually no excuse for a backhoe to be on an active track.”
A message left Sunday with Amtrak officials was not returned.
Frigo said he did not know why the equipment was on a track that the train was using.
Ari Ne’eman, a disability rights activist heading to Washington after speaking at an event in New York, said he was in the second car at the time of the crash. “The car started shaking wildly, there was a smell of smoke, it looked like there was a small fire and then the window across from us blew out,” said Ne’eman, 28, of Silver Spring, Md.
Some passengers started to get off after the train stopped, but the conductor quickly stopped them, he said. Officials started evacuating people to the rear of the train and then off and to a church. “It was a very frightening experience. I’m frankly very glad that I was not on the first car,” where there were injuries, he said.