Northeast Regional 188 - Accident In Philadelphia

Here is the Washington Post article.

Extract, fair use:

PHILADELPHIA — A judge on Tuesday dismissed criminal charges against the engineer in an Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight people, citing a lack of evidence.

“Based on this evidence, I feel it’s more likely an accident than criminal negligence,” Judge Thomas Gehret said after a preliminary hearing for Brandon Bostian, who faced charges that included involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

Hope nobody thinks that Mr. Bostian's life will be "back to normal" being "restored to service with seniority unimpaired but without payment for time lost". What discipline, if any, assessed by Amtrak is "sealed".

Although I believe Mr. Bostian is a good man who wanted only to operate trains reliably and safely, no road under FRA jurisdiction will again afford him that opportunity. Maybe some railroad museum will allow him.

I've had to make that same point to people on other forums and venues. The mere fact that people died under his care is more than enough weighing on him for the rest of his life; at least the legal side of it is closed for him, as far as criminal liability goes. Time for the powers that be to let him move on with his life, changed as it is now.

THANK GOD!!!!!

As I said in a previous post, IMHO the person(s) who SHOULD be charged with a criminal act is whoever threw the rock!!!!

what rock?? read investigation? 188 was nearly 4 miles past rock incident .

The inference was to place blame on the person or persons that instigated the start of the entire chain of events involving the other trains that ultimately culminated in the wreck of 188, be it rock or other projectile that struck the SEPTA train and the westbound Acela beforehand.

Silverliner II wrote:

Gilbert B Norman wrote:... life will [not ever] be "back to normal" ...

... a good man who wanted only to operate trains reliably and safely

... The mere fact that people died under his care ... weighing on him for the rest of his life ...

No evidence at all, but I have a strong feeling that despite his eight years of good service, Joe Boardman carries similar pain. It happened on his watch. In a tragedy like this, from Amtrak's employees and passengers and the victim's families and friends, more than enuff pain to go around.

Silverliner II wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:what rock?? read investigation? 188 was nearly 4 miles past rock incident .

The inference was to place blame on the person or persons that instigated the start of the entire chain of events involving the other trains that ultimately culminated in the wreck of 188, be it rock or other projectile that struck the SEPTA train and the westbound Acela beforehand.

Exactly!

Are the inward-facing cab cameras in place so that at least we never have a situation again where we are guessing what happened.

Believe he will still be dealing with Lawsuits from the family members,even though Amtrak settled and paid off.

"Blood from a turnip", Mr. Backshop.

The only job he will ever get is flipping 'em at MickeyD.

His life is ruined. I pray the outcome will not be the same as for Capt. McVeigh of the USS Indianapolis.

Silverliner II wrote:The inference was to place blame on the person or persons that instigated the start of the entire chain of events involving the other trains that ultimately culminated in the wreck of 188, be it rock or other projectile that struck the SEPTA train and the westbound Acela beforehand.

Yep. Lets put charges against the passengers. After all, if passengers did not buy tickets the trains would not need to run.
Or blame congress for creating Amtrak. Blame whomever invented the train. We have to go to the start of the ENTIRE chain of events.
Blame the caveman who invented the wheel ... (Have we reduced the argument to absurd yet?)

Blame everyone else.

Blame the Internet forum that keeps talking about it ad nauseum.

The lawyers here may comment further, but unless shielded by his union, Mr. Bostian will have more days ahead in civil court.

In 1951, a PRR commuter train derailed on a temporary shoofly that had a slow order. 86 people died. Turns out the engineer had forgotten about the slow order. The engineer was not convicted of anything, at least partly because the PRR had not complied with its own rules about putting up signs warning crews of the shoofly.

One big difference between this wreck and the Amtrak wreck: The Pennsy gave the engineer a non-operating job which he kept until his retirement.

Such an act of charity would not be possible for Amtrak.

The PRR was not initially kind to Engineer Fitzsimmons. They blamed the accident on him. It was only after later investigations that the blame was shifted to PRR for their then common practice of ignoring their own rules requiring yellow lamps in areas with slow orders. Wet rails and an overcrowded train did not help the situation. The prosecutor went after PRR with charges of manslaughter but the charges were dropped due to the cost of prosecution. The county could not afford to prosecute the PRR.

It was good to see the PRR accept some responsibility and take care of Mr Fitzsimmons ... despite initially trying to put 100% of the blame on him.

The shoofly was put into use only hours before the incident. Compared to a permanent speed restriction that was in place before the engineer was hired (dare say before he was born?) ... I'd say that was another big difference.