Cascades 501 Wreck 18 December 17

Leader was WDTX 1402, not AMTK 181.

Interestingly northbound 500, which was stopped at Olympia-Lacey, is northbound now, presumably to use the Seattle Sub along the coast.

Amtrak assigns coach seats based on destination, so hopefully most people were in the comparatively undamaged cars.

Has the Cascades been running more double-drafts lately? No cab car on that Talgo consist.

A bunch of the trains have been running Charger-Talgo-P42/F59 in order to test and break in the new units. Some have been running SC-44-NPCU-Talgo-P42/F59.

500 is currently heading north via the old Point Defiance route.

Confirming 500 using the old route via Amtrak Tracking map.

503

STrRedWolf wrote:Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... r-olympia/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

King 5 Seattle: http://www.king5.com/mobile/article/tra ... 5?scroll=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Anyone know if Cameron Booth @transitmaps is in Seattle?

He's based on Portland.

Does Talgo's maintenance contract cover this sort of damage? Or, will they build replacement cars?

King 5 has footage showing a speed restriction sign just before the curve the train derailed on - 30 mph. Lots of speculation of the train going too fast, based on the last reported speed on the Amtrak train tracker being 81 mph.

JimBoylan wrote:Does Talgo's maintenance contract cover this sort of damage? Or, will they build replacement cars?

It’s possible some of the replacement cars are already built and parked at Beach Grove.

Does anyone know if new routes are required to have PTC operational before being put in service? The legal side of PTC is not my forte, so maybe someone else knows. In other words did this route have operational PTC on its first day or not?

deathtopumpkins wrote:King 5 has footage showing a speed restriction sign just before the curve the train derailed on - 30 mph. Lots of speculation of the train going too fast, based on the last reported speed on the Amtrak train tracker being 81 mph.

With that kind of damage (and the fact that everything but the trailing P42 derailed) there's no way it was going just 30 mph. Oddly though the SC-44 remained upright and is sitting on the highway.

Whether PTC existed or not... whether it would have helped or not... I can already hear the politicians gloating over it.

Oddly though the SC-44 remained upright and is sitting on the highway.

Yeah the Charger actually looks in decent shape. Pretty banged up in the front, and the roof is currently off of it for some reason, but it looks largely intact.

AP is now reporting that there was an "obstruction on the tracks".

Now 6 dead............ Now NBC is stating that something was on the track.