Amtrak continues to have problems with its trains.
A high-speed Amtrak traveling to New York broke into two pieces in Maryland as it reached speeds of up to 125mph on Tuesday.
The malfunction happened at about 11:20am on the 2150 Acela express train from Washington, DC to New York’s Penn Station.
‘Earlier this morning, at approximately 6:40 am, Acela Express train 2150 traveling from Washington, DC, to Boston, experienced a mechanical issue when two of the train’s cars separated,’ the company said in a statement provided to DailyMail.com.
Amtrak continues to have problems with its trains. A high-speed Amtrak traveling to New York broke into two pieces in Maryland as it reached speeds of up to 125mph on Tuesday. The above stock image shows an Amtrak Acela train
It has been a tumultuous two months for the national rail service. In the most recent crash on Sunday, an Amtrak train carrying 139 passengers slammed into a stationary freight train parked on the tracks near Columbia, South Carolina
‘There were approximately 52 passengers aboard, who were transferred to Northeast Regional Train 180.
‘There were no reported injuries to customers or crew.
‘We are currently investigating the cause of the car separation, inspecting every Acela trainset, and taking any necessary actions to prevent a reoccurrence.’
It has been a bad two months for US rail travel, with at three least serious accidents taking place in Tacoma, Charlottesville and Columbia.
In the most recent crash on Sunday, an Amtrak train carrying 139 passengers slammed into a stationary freight train parked on the tracks near Columbia, South Carolina.
According to Amtrak, CSX, which operates that area of track and its signals, flipped a switch, mistakenly diverting the Amtrak train off the main tracks and into the path of the freight line.
Sunday’s accident was the fourth fatal Amtrak incident in seven weeks, NPR.org reported, and is part of what critics say is a broader problem involving a ‘lax safety culture’ at Amtrak.
The train was heading for Miami from Penn Station in New York City when it was diverted onto a side track.
It then collided head-on with the parked freight train, killing two crew members and injuring more than 100 passengers.
Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board appear to be focusing on two possibly related problems that may have contributed to the head-on collision, NPR said.
One is the position of a track switch that steered the passenger train off the mainline track and onto the siding where the freight train was parked; the second is that wayside signals in the area were down for maintenance and upgrades, and inoperative at the time of the crash.
Last month, an Amtrak train chartered by the Republican Party to take Congressmen and their families to their annual retreat in West Virginia collided with a truck. One person died and several were injured
Meanwhile the New York Post has reported that the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) – a GPS-based emergency-stop feature – was left out of commission in the South Carolina switch yard where the accident hardened.
The collision would not have occurred if a PTC system had been functioning there, U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said.
The NTSB said the same thing after an Amtrak train derailed near DuPont, Washington, on 18 December when an engineer failed to slow down for a curve, killing three people.
Last week, a train carrying Republican lawmakers collided with a truck in Crozet, West Virginia.
One truck passenger was killed and two other occupants in the truck, including the driver, were injured.
Several people on the train suffered minor injuries.
Amtrak’s president, Richard Anderson, said the accident happened because ‘someone was trying to drive around a cross-block’.
Meanwhile, an Amtrak engineer was ordered Tuesday to stand trial for a deadly 2015 derailment in Philadelphia as a judge reinstated involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges.
Meanwhile, an Amtrak engineer, Brandon Bostian (above), 34, was ordered Tuesday to stand trial for a deadly 2015 derailment in Philadelphia as a judge reinstated involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges
Another judge had thrown out the charges against 34-year-old Brandon Bostian last year, ruling that the evidence pointed to an accident, not negligence.
Pennsylvania prosecutors appealed.
Judge Kathryn S. Lewis ruled that the earlier judge had erred and that there was sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.
Bostian sat stunned as the decision was announced.
He’s free on bail but must surrender his passport.
He has been on unpaid administrative leave from Amtrak since the crash.
Eight people died when the Washington-to-New York train rounded a curve at more than twice the 50 mph speed limit and hurdled off the tracks, crumpling cars and catapulting passengers into the woods. In addition to the eight deaths, about 200 people were hurt.
Federal safety investigators concluded Bostian was distracted by radio chatter and lost his bearings.