American Thinker: Horrible news from South Carolina this morning. If America is going to have a passenger rail system, we have to do much better than this. Via The State:
A crash involving an Amtrak passenger train and a freight train in Cayce, South Carolina, left at least two people dead and more than 50 injured.
Pine Ridge train incident update: @CountyLex confirms two fatalities, more than 50 injured transported to the hospital. Shelter for passengers open at Pine Ridge Middle School. Media update @SCEMD at 6:30 a.m. #alert
— SCEMD (@SCEMD) February 4, 2018
It would appear that something is seriously wrong with the way passenger rail is operating in the United States under the federal corporation AMTRAK. This crash is the third fatal AMTRAK crash since the AMTRAK Cascades train derailed in Washington State at the cost of 3 lives and 62 passenger injuries only 49 days ago. Last Wednesday’s crash in Virginia of a train carrying Congressional Republicans to a retreat killed one. And now, the South Carolina crash has killed at least two.
Each of these three accidents had a separate, probably preventable cause, though of course official verdicts await formal proceedings. read more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJKCWaiYUP4
I don’t fly no more and I usually Amtrak it (despite the outrageous cost) but now I might have to reconsider it.
Employees are usually friendly (because they are WELL PAID). Ask them.
In the incident in Washington State I used to trespass across that trestle when I was a kid. We used to go to Fort Lewis Training Area 3N with our 22s and/or fishing poles three to five days almost every week and then would cross I-5 on the trestle to get to Ken Bragget’s property or the Ft Lewis Golf course to shoot band tails or rabbits or to set traps or maybe to fish.
Trains have to cross the freeway because of the grade they need to cross I-5 to sidehill down into the Nisqually Valley.
Trains never went over about 10 mph through that section of track. Never and I mean never. After the wreck when they were saying: We need to find “the black box.” I said: I would be looking for lunch box that belongs to the bastard who was driving the thing to see if it has a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a bag of cocaine in it.
And Amtrak is pushing for high speed rail to cut through my county. These words should never be uttered in the same sentence… Amtrak Experimental High Speed Rail.
Problem with the east coast is that freight hauler CSX owns the actual tracks that Amtrak runs on and CSX has priority over Amtrak. Not to mention the rail traffic coordination that must be managed between the two companies.
And CSX’s swayback rails.
Why didn’t Joe Biden fix this shit?
Seriously, we have the technology but the deadline for installation keeps getting pushed back.
Let’s see. High speed rail proposed for California + legalized marijuana = what could possibly go wrong?
So is it safe to say that government is now a literal train wreck?
After smoking a joint, Rickey Gates ran his light engine consist past a red signal and into the path of an Amtrak train killing fourteen.
Gates gave his “expert” testimony before Congress saying almost half of all rails drank and did drugs. Congress mandated random alcohol/drug testing for all rails following his attempt to spread guilt. Less than one percent tested positive in the first year. As a locomotive engineer, I can attest that my job became much safer over the years
I am smelling sabotage…..
Why was the switch padlocked?
https://nypost.com/2018/02/04/feds-investigating-why-amtrak-switch-was-set-in-wrong-position/.
Switch locked in wrong position and last one to use the switch was CSX. Should be pretty easy to figure out who is to blame for this curfuggel.
S\hows how little that Princton hater knowsabout trains. Guess nowadays the little ones have missed that simple pleasure. (We used to set up tracks and play with them year round).