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Amtrak Derailment Kills at Least Six in Washington State

posted by martyb on Tuesday December 19 2017, @12:57AM   

takyon writes:

Report: At least 6 dead after Amtrak train derails from bridge onto Interstate 5 near Olympia

Several people were killed Monday morning when an Amtrak train derailed and fell off a bridge over Interstate 5 near Mounts Road between Lakewood and Olympia. The Associated Press, citing an unnamed U.S. official, reported that at least six people were killed in the crash. Gov. Jay Inslee has called a state of emergency in response to the derailment.

Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told news media that there were fatalities on the train and that motorists had been injured, but not killed. A total of 77 people were sent to hospitals in Pierce and Thurston counties, according to CHI Franciscan Health, which operates numerous hospitals in Western Washington. Four of the injured are "level red" patients, with critical injuries. The injured are being taken to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, St. Claire Hospital in Lakewood, St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor and Tacoma General Hospital and Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.

There were 78 passengers and five crew members on the train when it derailed, according to Amtrak.

The train was running on a new, faster service route using a new bypass. This was the first day that the new route was used.

Also at CNN. Amtrak statement about service disruption.

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Original Submission

• Re:CNN is fake news. Re:CNN is fake news. (Score: 2, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:19AM (3 children)

  by frojack (1554) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:19AM (#611715) Journal

  Brand New track WITHOUT PTC because the DOT of two democratic states got excused by the Obama administration. Amtrak is nothing but a contractor used to operate the Government owned train on government owned track. Amtrak is a quasi-governmet organization.

  Regulations seem to apply to everyone except the government.

  --
  No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

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• Re:CNN is fake news. (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:50AM

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:50AM (#611726) Journal

  Amtrak is nothing but a contractor used to operate the Government owned train on government owned track. Amtrak is a quasi-governmet organization.

  Regulations seem to apply to everyone except the government.

  Except the track segment that should have had activated the PTC are not owned by Amtrak [thenewstribune.com] but by Sound Transit [wikipedia.org]

  The tracks are owned by Sound Transit. They were previously owned by BNSF and were used for occasional freight and military transport.

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

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• Re:CNN is fake news. (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:49PM

  by DutchUncle (5370) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:49PM (#611925)

  >>> DOT of two democratic states got excused by the Obama administration

  ... just like all of the other states, because the Republican congress kept arguing that ANY REGULATION IS BAD, and besides if the REGULATION deadline is next year why should anyone spend any money or effort to conform to the REGULATION before hand? It's a foolproof tactic: They f*** things up and then point to them yelling "Hey, this is f***ed up!"

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• Re:CNN is fake news. (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:59PM

  by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:59PM (#611933) Journal

  Brand New track WITHOUT PTC...

  The sad irony is that those tracks did have PTC but it was still being tested. [usatoday.com]

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