Hearing held for truck driver in CONOL derailment

[Amfleet]

September 22, 2004 — John Stokes, the truck driver charged in connection to a fatal Amtrak train derailment five years ago, spoke to the media for the first time outside the Kankakee Courthouse, where he appeared for a sentencing hearing. Eleven people died when the train crashed in Bourbonnais on March 15, 1999. Stokes said the crash was not his fault.

"The engineer wasn't qualified to run that train. You found that out didn't you? He put it on emergency level and that dug up the ties. It wasn't hitting that or anything and then part of the problem was putting water on diesel fuel," said Stokes.

Full article here.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

If that guy is representative of the quality of the average big-rig trucker, we're all in deep weeds.

 

[P40Power]

So according to him I guess every train that gets put into emergency derails . . .

What a moron, a true moron. He shoulda been killed in the wreck!

 

[AmtrakWPK]

The gene pool does march forward in a mostly Darwinian fashion, but I still can't wish anybody dead, even so. Maybe just sterile.......