Capital Limited Derailment Last July

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AlanB

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CSX Corp. crews had worked on the section of the company-owned track on July 22. They planned to complete the work later, and a 25 mph speed limit was placed on the track section until the job could be finished.
But weather and delays kept the work from being completed, and a track supervisor who thought the work was done raised the speed limit to 60 mph on July 28, according to CSX spokesman Gary Sease. The Amtrak train was traveling 60 mph when it derailed.

"It was a procedural error. The slow order should not have been lifted," Sease said.

The full story from 1010 WINS News.

Looks like we may now know the cause of this accident.

One unfortunate note, the headline of the article makes it sound like Amtrak is to blame.

Report: Amtrak Train Was Speeding
While the article makes it clear that the problem is with CSX, anyone scanning the headlines would think that it was the engineer's fault and blame him and Amtrak. Someone was obviously going for the flashy headline.
 
:angry: Ya know, CSX is gonna make up whatever BS it can to cover its butt. The only opinion i even begin to trust is the FRA and NTSB, even that's pushing it.
 
Seems that Amtrak is now the media's target of the moment. Would be nice if the writers would write more unbaised headlines.
 
Actually I rather doubt that CSX had anything to do with that title. More likely just some overzelous reporter looking for glory.

That said however, here's a more unbiased story from the Baltimore Sun

A rail supervisor mistakenly lifted a 25 mph speed limit on a stretch of track in Kensington days before an Amtrak train, traveling at 60 mph, derailed last month in the same area, according to a report released yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The speed restrictions had been put in place by track owner CSX on July 22 because of unfinished track repairs. But thinking the work had been completed, the supervisor lifted the speed limit several days later. When the Capitol Limited, pulling 13 passenger cars from Chicago to Washington, reached that stretch of track July 29, it should have been following the limit, according to the NTSB report.
 
I love it!!! :p

This is the umpteenth time that CSX has dropped the ball. As is standard practice, CSX will be fined a couple million, a few hundred trackworkers will be hired and everything will quiet down. Then the shareholders will cry for more profit, the trackworkers will be furloughed, and in a short period of time we will have another derailment.

While Amtrak will never own the tracks the LDT's run on, will there ever be the day where the freights will be held responsible for actual track conditions and be financially liable for passengers and rail equipment damage? It really torques my "nads" that we have to pay a premium for on-time performance, and get crappy rails to run on!!!
 
#30 was running 60mph due to the fact he had car 1452 in the consist. on csx the 1400 series mhc's are restricted to 60mph
 
The fact that #30 was moving at 60 instead of normal track speed, has no real bearing on the fact that CSX should never have lifted the order for a 25mph restricted speed. Yes it may have made the accident less severe.

However, the real question is why did CSX screw up? Plus like Miami Joe asked, "will there ever be the day where the freights will be held responsible for actual track conditions and be financially liable for passengers and rail equipment damage?"
 
You know I never posted this before but had our train not gone when planned (due to the Sunset Ltd annulments in July) we would have been on that CL that derailed! In fact the day before we left we had talked to a supervisor in the customer service area that had agreed to changing our ticket to take the SW Chief and then the CL to DC and one of the many trains down to Orlando from there. We ended up just rolling the dice and sticking with our booked SL trip - when we found out about the derailment we couldn't believe it.
 
Radsmon,

Well that was one roll of the dice that really paid off. :) Thank goodness you did stay with the Sunset, a late train is always better than one that’s off the tracks.
 
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