Just in on the 11 pm news… an Acela train has derailed near New Haven, CT… 60 passengers and 12 crew were on board, injuries are unknown at this time
Man, this is not good. Hopefully nobody was injured.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041029/ap_on_re_us/train_derailment_1
Mike - thanks for alerting us. We can only hope the injuries aren’t serious, but we’ll soon find out.
Do you know roughly, (or anyone else that’s closer), what sort of speeds the Acela would have been doing on that part of the line?
Dave
Reports indicate it was about a mile south of the New Haven station. My guess, not a very high speed limit at that point. One report says that an Amtrak spokesman reports no known injuries.
At this point it does not seem as if this is a very bad event. A big wreck would have had more urgent and up to the moment coverage. At least I hope I am right.
Jay
This is just the sort of thing that really bothered me. The Amtrak tries to zoom along and it periodically rocks violently as it crosses certain sections of track. Could this have caused today’s accident? Has it caused Amtrak derailments in the past?
Some of you may be right when you have written that Amtrak should go away. The intent of this thinking, I suppose, is that the railroads will return to passenger service and do a better job.
How about the recent article in the November issue that NS is considering passenger service. Well, for now, we must pray that all the passengers and crew of the Acela are safe.
Yeah, seriously doubt it could have been going very fast at all only a mile away from the station. Let’s just hope no one was hurt and people don’t stop riding Acela over this.
check out www.nbc30.com, it has a story to make all smile
This is Metro North maintained, Connecticut DOT owned track.
That link dosnt work for me, does it work for anyone else?
Yikes…thank goodness it wasn’t going it’s fast speed.
Updated news…
I love the Acela Express…It can’t derail and give itself a bad reputation. I hope that only us people on the forum hear about it and not hte public, that way they dont stop riding.
Too late. Its in the papers!
This AM on the way to work Boston Radio Station WBZ reported that the accident happened during a back up move in the station. They stated no injuries. The report went on to say that it was effecting service bewteen New Haven and Milford CT.
This was in the 0600 hrs news report.
Happy Halloween All!
I just saw News 12 CT.The pictures they had weren’t bad. Last coach loked a little off the track.
Oh. I forgot to add, Two people minorly injured,one left Yale-New Haven hospital shortly after arriving.
Actually I thought these folks wanted Amtrak to go away and that would be the end of it. I don’t see any way that freight railroads will return to passenger service (barring some kind of unfunded mandate from Congress - highly unlikely).
As for other passengers not riding a train after seeing a news report of a derailment . . . there are a few who will change their minds, but most people weigh the odds and go on with their plans regardless.
Ok - pointy head here - our Amtrak runs on wind and water out here. Sounds like this particular one is electrified, is this correct?
Moo
Correct, it runs on the NE corridor, the ex-Pennsy, New Haven electrified territory. Sounds like the train was heading out of the station, the engineer saw the overhead wires were damaged. Stopped and then was backing up (probably less than 10 mph). Normally this is caused by not having a switch lined properly or running through a switch. In any case the engineer should be commended on noticing the damaged overhead.
Dave H.
Joe, don’t forget that railroads worked “Diligently” in the 1960s to GET RID OF passenger service with the exception of a few. Southern Pacific was infamous for deliberatly discouraging people in the late 60s to ride their trains! There was a written article on this a few years back.
Even when running full, North American passenger trains always lose money……it’s a proven fact. What has to change is the attitude that passenger service is a needed infrastructure just like our highways.
As for NS, they’re for “supporting” commuter agencies running trains on NS tracks, but this is as long as NS doesn’t have to do any “subsidizing” of the service. The government has money available that would allow a freight railroad to refurbish its tracks that a named commuter agency will run passenger trains on. This is millions of dollars so only a railroad executive that’s an idiot would turn that down!
So again, freight railroads DO NOT want to own and maintain passenger trains. Too much maintenance and liability.
If you want Amtrak to go away, just remember that if this happens more than likely that, except for metropoliton regions, service wi