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Trains Top 10 stories: No. 4, Amtrak 188
6+ months and no hint of a determination. Unconcionable.
On October 9, 1995, the westbound Sunset Limited derailed southwest of Phoenix at about 1:30AM, killing 1 person and injuring 78 others. The cause was sabotage, as numerous track spikes had been removed, and the rails wired to maintain a signal circuit; who actually tampered with the track is still unsolved, 20 years later …
In that sense the cause here, grossly excessive speed, is also evident. Just no one can come up with a reason why.
The data from the orange colored “black box” has been known for months, the Engineer’s cellphone has been ruled out, so, is it possible the ACS-64 had an anomoly? The Engineer had a health issue? We just have to wait and see.
Assuming that the cars only have standard air brakes and not electric or electrically controlled air brakes, is it possible that when the engine brakes activated the inertial force of the rear cars (whose brakes had not been activated because of the delay in train line pressure reduction) caused the train to dog leg at the car that was most severely damaged? Has this possibility been considered and could the uniform braking provided by electrically controlled brakes have at least reduced the severity of damage to the coach that was most severely damaged?
Who was in control of the loco or who was in charge of monitoring what the loco was supposed to be doing ? Human error is the only answer.
Lets be realistic. From all current evidence, the engineer was at fault, despite his “spotless record.” Extensive medical and forensic tests are required. The possibility of a suicide urge must be explored, with the German Wings and MH370 and EgyptAir “suicide by pilot” crashes as examples. I assume there was no one else in the cab?
If the engineer was awake, you can innately tell that your speed is not where it has to be for the upcoming track alignment! No matter the outcome, lets let the public know what the cause of this accident was once and for all.
Hiding the truth and hoping that interest will go away is not the responsible way to deal with deaths caused by this unfortunate event.
Do you have any passenger # for the “Hoosier State” since Ed Ellis has operated train staffing???
Thanks!!!
The locomotive windshield had a large star-shaped damaged area in spite of the locomotive not colliding with anything. Other trains operating in the same area had complaints of being hit by “missiles” (rocks or ?) at about the same time. Did some local miscreant throw or drop a rock at just the wrong moment to scare the engineer and cause him to lose his focus? If the miscreant could throw a rock at 50 MPH at the train going 106 MPH the hit could be quite violent (156 MPH) and unnerving to anyone in the cab. Has anyone done forensic analysis on the windshield damage? Could the accident be attributable to policing failure?