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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 2017)
Christmas at the Grotto Enjoying the sights and sounds of the season ‘City of Roses’ Volume XLVI • Number 51 See Metro, page 9 www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • December 20, 2017 Established in 1970 Committed to Cultural Diversity On its first ever run along a faster new route, an Amtrak Cascades train bound for Portland derailed on a curve and plunged off an overpass onto I-5 south of Seattle Monday, killing three people and injuring more than 70 others. (AP photo) Going Too Fast Amtrak Cascades crashes on inaugural run The Amtrak train bound for Portland and Seattle making its first ever run along a faster new route was hurtling 50 mph over the speed limit when it jumped the track and plunged off an overpass south of Se- attle Monday, killing at least three people, injuring dozens more and crushing two ve- hicles. Bella Dinh-Zarr, a National Transporta- tion Safety Board member, reported sever- al hours after the crash that the data record- er in the rear locomotive showed the train was going 80 mph in a 30 mph zone when it derailed along a curve, spilling some of its cars onto I-5 below. Dinh-Zarr said it is not yet known what caused the train to run off the rails and too early to say why it was going so fast. In- vestigators were looking into whether the engineer was distracted by the presence of an employee-in-training in the locomotive, a federal official said Tuesday. In previous wrecks, investigators looked at whether the engineer was distracted or disabled. The train, with 85 passengers and crew members, was making the inaugural run along a fast new bypass route that was cre- ated by refurbishing freight tracks along- side I-5. The 15-mile, $180.7 million proj- ect was aimed at speeding up service by bypassing a route with a number of curves, single-track tunnels and freight traffic. Positive train control - technology that can automatically slow or stop a speeding train - wasn’t in use on this stretch of track, according to Amtrak President Richard Anderson. Regulators have pressing railroads for C ontinued on P age 4
