Amtrak Train 188 - Possibly some answers coming soon?

[Euclid]

schlimm

You have no credible evidence that the windshield, etc. were not examined thoroughly.   

I don't claim to have any evidence of whether or not the windshield was examimed. All I am saying is that a credible report will include such a laboratory examination of the windshield and will state the results of that examination.  If the investigation final report does not include that, I will consider the investigation and the report to be flawed.   

[Electroliner 1935]

schlimm

You have no credible evidence that the windshield, etc. were not examined thoroughly.   

 

Schlimm, while what you say may be true, this is the kind of post that is offensive to the must of the posters (at least this one) and is what starts the thread being locked. I would ask that you refrain from trying to pick fights or arguments. 

We don't have knowledge of what the investigation has determined yet and until we do, we can speculate. Things we do know include a SEPTA train being rocked. And Bostian alerting it to his approach. 

 

Bostian seems like what we want in an engineer, it is reasonable to give him any benefit of the doubt until all the evidence is in. I concur that the possibility of something impacting the ACS-64 could be involved. He took the Southbound Acela with no incident to Washington. He passed the substance tests and cooperated with the investigation. I say lets wait until the investigation is complete before jumping to any conclusions. And lets not challenge other posters as if they have commited blasphemy. Please.

[schlimm]

Simply stating a fact without rancor, without name-calling, is not picking a fight.  Euclid and I respect each other's opinions but feel entirely free to challenge each other.

[wanswheel]

Excerpt from interview of SEPTA engineer Curtis Parrish

http://dms.ntsb.gov/public/58000-58499/58167/585209.pdf

Q. Okay, Mr. Parrish, like I mentioned before, if you could just give us a run-down leaving 30th Street and what you experienced, and in particular, anything that you remember about the 188 train as he, I understand, he came up and went by you? Over.

A. All right. We left 30th Street at approximately 9:01. Nothing out of the ordinary. Came eastbound through Mantua. I started to increase speed, I was just -- well, in fact, as I was leaving Mantua. And I saw a white light. I don't know what it was. It looked like it could've been somebody carrying a white light. So I decided to blow the horn for them, to make sure they know I was coming. I'm positive it wasn't an employee or an Amtrak employee because they didn't have a whistle board or anything like that. So I just wanted to warn them that a train was coming. As I blew the horn, something hit the windshield and knocked glass into my face and onto the console, then onto my person. As I ducked down, trying to get away from it, I was clutching the door and trying to get out of the door; couldn't get the door open. And I heard a passenger knock on the door because they also heard the sound too. I put the train into emergency, and I finally got the door open and started to call the CTEC 6. I could tell there was a person out there, but I couldn't tell -- I couldn't give a description or anything, because you -- if you're running in the dark, you can tell there's someone out there, but you can't really tell -- you couldn't really tell a description because they were on the 3 track that's on my right. And I'm sure that they weren't trying to be seen anyway, but I digress. I called CTEC 6 and told them that something hit my windshield and shattered the windshield. I don't what it was. I told them that we would had put our train in emergency and we were stopped at milepost 86. They asked me again, you know, where we were, approximately where we were, if anybody was hurt. I told them that no one was hurt, and he asked me again, was -- did I need assistance. So finally, I told him that, okay, you can send assistance, but I don't believe anybody was hurt because I was the only one in the cab obviously. I was, you know, brushing the glass off of me and everything like that. And the Amtrak train was coming east, and I could hear him on the radio saying -- because he saw us stopped, I could hear him on the radio saying we have hot rail on 2. That would be train 188 passing us. That was approximately 15 minutes -- we had been stopped -- maybe 10 minutes after we had been stopped. So he passed us. When he passed us, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary out of 188. It seemed to pass us at normal speed. I don't think he was going any faster than he should've been. It just passed us. But the other train was just, was telling us that a train was coming. I can't even remember if he blew his horn or not, but -- usually that would be the case, but I can't remember if he blew his horn or not. So there was really nothing I could say that was out of the ordinary about 188 passing us. Usually that train does not pass us until later down the road, but since we had been -- we're in emergency and we had stopped because I was making a report to CTEC 6, it passed us earlier than it usually does. It passed us. I tried to make another report to CTEC 6 because he was just trying to make sure we were okay and trying to make sure that he had someone coming to our assistance. That's when our power when out. And when our -- after our power went out and came back on, he told me that he had gotten an emergency call so he couldn't talk to us anymore. Because I didn't yell emergency on the radio. I just knew something hit us, and I was kind of shocked that something hit us. So I didn't yell emergency on the radio. But Amtrak got the emergency call from the 188 train, so we didn't have any more contact with CTEC 6. Outside of that, they sent fire, they sent police to our train. You know, we -- you know, I made sure I gave all the information to the police officers that showed up. I told the EMTs that I did not need assistance and they continued on to the other scene. That's basically everything that happened to our train.

 

Excerpt from interview of Amtrak dispatcher Joseph Curran

http://dms.ntsb.gov/public/58000-58499/58167/585202.pdf

Q. If you could, if you have to take a minute or two or if you want to use any notes you have there started, that's beautiful. But what I'm looking for, and I think pretty much what our little group is looking for here, is if you could give us a scenario of the train as it came onto your territory, basically operated as -- well, as far as he went, and then just take us through the notification, what you did for the response people, who you talked to in the office there and, you know, anything you basically can add. We're looking for as many details as possible.

A. Okay. I was -- displayed form normal past 30th Street Station, like I said, his normal route, 1 to 2 at Girard and all the way through Holmes, east of Holmes, on 2 track. As far as I can remember, it was all clear signals, pulled up with them. At the time, I couldn't tell you the exact time. It probably happened about 5 to 10 minutes before I got the emergency call. I was dealing with the SEPTA train who was just west of Lehigh on 1 track. I believe it was SEPTA 746, I want to say. And he just, he reported going into emergency -- or, I mean, not -- he report his windshield being blown out and he said he was stopped at, I want to say, around milepost 86, if my memory serves me right. He said he wasn't sure what blew out his windshield. His whole windshield was gone. He wasn't sure if it was a rock, somebody stoned his train, or maybe even a possible gunshot. He really didn't know. So I asked him if he wanted, needed medical attention. My focus was on him at that moment. And he said he wanted medical attention. And at the same time, right around that same time, 188 was coming east up to his location. I vaguely remember overhearing the engineer on 188 saying something along the lines of, like, coming up on you or hot rail, kind of notifying that engineer that he was coming east on -- coming up to him. I don't know if he gave him a direction or anything. And oh, excuse me, prior to that, there was an Acela train that was reported was going west. I don't know his exact location. I didn't speak with them, but I overheard just through the office that he reported either a possible gunshot or stoning. So it had to have been around the same vicinity. So it was the SEPTA train that reported this, the Acela train who was going westbound, I believe 2173, and my focus was on that. I overheard 188 saying, you know, he was coming up on – in that area, and that was it. So my focus was still on that SEPTA train who was on my territory, and I was notifying the assistant chiefs that we needed to get a EMS out there for this engineer because he reported glass all over his face and he wanted medical attention. So that was it. I'd say a couple, probably about 2 to 5 minutes later after that, 188 was obviously still going east on 2 track. He went past the SEPTA train's location, no problems. And all of a sudden, I lost signal power, everything went red. At that point I spoke with the power director, which is pretty normal when we lose signal power. He was actually walking towards my section before I got to him. He asked if anybody reported losing signal power out there, so I was just about to contact either 188 or the SEPTA train about if they lost signal power out there, and just before I tried to contact them on the radio, I heard -- I believe it was a handbrake or the assistant conductor -- I can't remember her exact title -- but she screamed emergency, emergency, emergency. And I spoke with her on the radio. She said that they had derailed and that their car was on their side.

 

All of the interviews are interesting.

http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitlist.cfm?docketID=58167&CurrentPage=9&EndRow=135&StartRow=121&order=1&sort=0&TXTSEARCHT