Track Inspection

[Ken Beaudrie]

My mother and sister were on the train that derailed near St. Louis. The derailment occured after a drenching rain (from one the the hurricanes?). I live in Denver and I know that mountain highways and rail tracks often experience rock slides following a heavy rain or snow.

My question is "Why doesn't Amtrak send an inspector in a motorized rail buggy along tracks susceptible to rock slides after a storm and before a passenger train is allowed to pass?" While my sister is no expert, she stated that the train was traveling at "high speed" through the pass. Without a track inspection, one would think caution would be the rule, not the time-table.

The expense of an accident must surely be greater than the cost of inspection. The engine of the derailed train was rolled probably requiring expensive repair. The tracks were most likely damaged. The passengers had to be transported and housed. Hospital bills are to be paid. No wonder Amtrak is losing money!

 

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

My mother and sister were on the train that derailed near St. Louis. The derailment occured after a drenching rain (from one the the hurricanes?). I live in Denver and I know that mountain highways and rail tracks often experience rock slides following a heavy rain or snow.
My question is "Why doesn't Amtrak send an inspector in a motorized rail buggy along tracks susceptible to rock slides after a storm and before a passenger train is allowed to pass?" While my sister is no expert, she stated that the train was traveling at "high speed" through the pass. Without a track inspection, one would think caution would be the rule, not the time-table.

The expense of an accident must surely be greater than the cost of inspection. The engine of the derailed train was rolled probably requiring expensive repair. The tracks were most likely damaged. The passengers had to be transported and housed. Hospital bills are to be paid. No wonder Amtrak is losing money!

Amtrak does not own the track that this train was on a freight RR owns the track.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

Yea, Amtrak does not own the tracks. It is the host freight railroads responsiblity to inspect the tracks. This derailment could have happend just as easily to one of their trains, it just so happened that the Amtrak was the first to come by.

 

[AlanB]

Even if someone did inspect the tracks, there is nothing that would have prevented the rock slide from occuring 5 minutes after the inspector went by and 10 minutes before your train went through the area.

The odds favor that a freight train had probably gone through that same section of track within a half an hour of Amtrak's Eagle hitting that stretch of track. The track sees quite a lot of trains each day, not just Amtrak's two trains one in each direction.

It was simply the luck of the draw that the Texas Eagle happened to come by first, after the rock fall had occured.