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Local  Philadelphia TV stations are reporting a massive Amtrak derailment (8 cars) with multiple injuries out side Philadelphia tonight. The train is Amtrak 188, bound for NYC.

 

Chris

LVHR

 

Edit: Mayor Nutter now confirms 5 dead, and 40-60 injuries, many serious. Reports are 238 and a crew of 5 were on board. The whole train derailed. The front end is very bad.

Last edited by lehighline
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Very eerily familiar:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...Junction_train_wreck

From CNN.com
"The cause of the derailment was unknown, but Amtrak said it was investigating. The area where the derailment occurred is known as Frankford Junction and has a big curve."

Not good at all. Amfleet car shredded. Reminds me of that Gunpow Interlocking "Colonial" January 1987 Maryland high speed drug related accident. At any rate the damage it took to shred that Amfleet car, some serious speed?
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Tonight's damage.
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1943 Frankford Junction
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Gunpow Jct 1987
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Gunpow Jct Amfleet cars destroyed similarly to tonight's Frankford event.

I had hoped we were past these types of accidents in our country. Japan seems to avoid deaths despite the incredible number of passengers they move in a day. Sad day for Amtrak and the families of those who were killed tonight. Tough deal.

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Last edited by Erik C Lindgren

Here is a screen-shot of the Port Richmond area of Philly.  The reported curve is in the northern-most portion of the red-shaded area of Port Richmond, and the thicker grey line depicts the multi-track mainline of Amtrak's Northeastern Corridor in the area.

 

 

Screen-shot-Port_Richmond

It will be very interesting to hear more details as they unfold. 

 

Back in the 1980's/1990's I traveled Amtrak almost daily, and this is near a very urbanized area of North Philadelphia.  Unless things have changed from when I rode Amtrak, passenger trains typically move slowly through this area due to rail traffic, although trains could go 50-60MPH in clear conditions.  The nearby locale is very reminiscent of an old dilapidated, worn down movie lot.  It is not typically an area of the Northeastern Corridor where Acela trains move at much higher speeds in excess of 80+ MPH -- more typical after leaving the Princeton, NJ area.

 

Philly's main 30th Street Station is a few minutes off to the left of the map (slightly south and west), and Trenton is several minutes from the upper right portion of the map (slightly north and east).

 

David

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Last edited by Rocky Mountaineer
Originally Posted by Rocky Mountaineer:

 

Screen-shot-Port_Richmond

 

Philly's 30th street station is a few minutes off to the right of the map, and Trenton is several minutes from the upper left portion of the map.

 

David

Actually on the map, Philly's 30th Street Station is down towards the left of the map (passing North Philadelphia Station first) and Trenton is towards the upper right of the map.  The accident scene is inside the city limits but northeast of downtown.

 

The line that diverges to the right from the junction is the New Jersey Transit line to Atlantic City.

 

I don't know if those tank cars on the siding next to where the ACS-64 #601 came to rest are full or not, but thank God they didn't get hit if they were.

Last edited by Traindiesel
Originally Posted by Traindiesel:

Actually on the map, Philly's 30th Street Station is down towards the left of the map (passing North Philadelphia Station first) and Trenton is towards the upper right of the map.  The accident scene is inside the city limits but northeast of downtown.

...

Brian, thanks for the correction!!!   I can't believe I mixed up my left/right in my post.   It was such a glaring and silly error, I corrected my post!  My bad.

 

David

Originally Posted by PRR Man:

       

in an effort to be relevant and important, NYC news comments about the 'dangerous' curve at Frankford Junction, despite 100's of train passages through it DAILY without incident.

 

more intelligent minds will wait for the NTSB report.

 


       


I am sure video surveillance footage will be found. Seems like in this age it's everywhere. It will be good to see what the NTSB concludes. I'm deeply depressed over this.
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/...ls-gallery-1.2220132

The media irritates the heck out of me.

Scroll down to this image:

image

And they state: "Twisted tracks can be seen in the foreground as rescue workers look over the wreckage of Amtrak Train 188. The passenger train went off the rails at a junction bend, killing five and injuring dozens, late Tuesday night in northeast Philadelphia."

WHAT TWISTED TRACK!!!!???

You simply can't fix stupid. The muckrakers are at it again!

The compression foreshortened nature of this telephoto shot with a long lens shows off the Frankford Jct curve. The rail lying between the tracks is typical of maintenance work. But where this media outlet gets "twisted tracks" from this photo is a mystery to me.

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Last edited by Erik C Lindgren

Just seen this on Yahoo.com news, and they claim 243 people were on board to include the passengers and train crew, over 130 hurt & injured, 6 dead. 9:30 am NYC time.

 

No mention about the twisted tracks as seen in one of the photos.

There are two things that I can think of for that; first going too fast and second very bad track maintenance. There could be other factors as well but let the NTSB decide who is at fault.

 

Lee Fritz

Last edited by phillyreading

Let the FRA, NTSB and Amtrak do the investigation, the so called Black Box as mentioned on the news, is the event recorder, the download from this device with provide valuable data to these three investigating agencies. Also from experience, both the track and signal systems will be completely checked for compliance and operation, records of the mandatory FRA daily inspections for equipment, locomotive and cars, placed in service yesterday will be checked as well as Amtrak Mechanical Department documented maintenance records of this equipment, also an onsite visual inspection of the locomotive and passenger cars for possible cause of the derailment is conducted.

This is such an awful situation...a horrible derailment involving death and injury, the aftermath of which is being compounded by uninformed and irresponsible reporting in most sectors. I finally had to just shut off the coverage as it was positively nauseating.

 

I'm praying for all involved, including those who must now go to work trying to figure out what happened. 

 

Note to Jim Pastorius who inquired about the Engineer...he survived. 

 

Bob    

Originally Posted by Erik C Lindgren:
Strange how was recently reading about the 1943 Frankford Jct accident. Very creepy seeing images of the same cause of death repeated 70 years later. The catenary masts acted as knives to the cars in effect tearing them apart according to an article published in 1943. image

Yeah, that is odd, as I, too, just read about this over the previous weekend!

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/...ls-gallery-1.2220132

imageimageimage

I'm not speculating; observation may surmise that the track went left and gravity decided the train was going to continue on its then current trajectory, straight. Speed? Broken wheel? Track failure?

NTSB we are holding our breath on this one.

I know this is dumb.. What happened to ATS? Or fail safes? Terrorism? Cyber attack on ATS system?

All good questions.

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Last edited by Erik C Lindgren

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