The derailment, involving eight cars of the Empire Builder train, happened near Joplin, Mont., on Saturday afternoon.
About 141 passengers and 16 crew members were on board
That’s a shame, I wonder why it derailed. I hope the injured weren’t seriously hurt, but it’s sad that 3 people have died.
Bullitt
September 26, 2021, 2:35pm
3
My son was almost on that train. He was on the next train on that same line.
Too close a call.
My son and granddaughter took that very train about a year ago. Wonder how they are feeling now.
THAT would be a scary sense of relief!
Yes, that thread is here. I don’t believe that @WildaBeast was on the affected train; they were looking to take the train at Christmas.
I’ve always wanted to take a long distance trip by train, and I’m seriously considering taking the train when I go visit my parents in Wisconsin for Christmas.
If I go to Amtrak’s website and search for trains from Sacramento to La Crosse, WI, it wants to route me north on the Coast Starlight to Portland, and connect to the Empire Builder. However, the connection time in Portland is 1 hour 13 minutes. Given Amtrak’s reputation for being delayed, how likely do you think I’d actually make that …
I’m not sure if this is blocked by a paywall, but this article on Trains.com (to which I subscribe) has a some details from the initial story:
The Empire Builder operates between Chicago and Seattle and Portland, Ore. The trains operates as one east of Spokane, Wash., but west of there splits into two sections, trains 7 and 8 to Seattle and trains 27 and 28 to Portland. Typically, the Portland cars operate at the rear of the combined train. It is equipped with bilevel Superliner equipment.
Analysis of the derailment photos appears to show that only the cars at the rear of the train, the four cars of the Portland section including a Sightseer Lounge, two coaches, and sleeper, fell on their sides.
HAVRE, Mont. – Amtrak confirms three deaths in the Saturday derailment of the westbound Empire Builder near Joplin, about 50 miles west of Havre. The train, which originated in Chicago on Friday, had 141 passengers and 16 crew members onboard. The...
I used to live just down the road–well, about 50 miles away, in Havre, but that’s considered nearby in Montana. It’s pretty remote, all right. I’m guessing the injured were taken to Havre, as that’s the nearest town with a real hospital. Or at least, it used to be. I haven’t been back in a long time.
I’ve taken the Empire Builder and love that train. I’m curious about the cause of the derailment, too. It’s too late for hot rails to be the cause and a little too early for frost or ice. And as I recall, no curves there.
Yikes.
Some early updates on the investigation (quotes are from the WaPo article). The three deceased are a retired couple from Georgia, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and a man from Illinois.
The Empire Builder train was traveling at 75 mph to 78 mph — below the speed limit of 79 mph — when it jumped the tracks in a remote section of north-central Montana, NTSB Vice Chair Bruce Landsberg said in a Monday briefing. With one full day at the crash scene, investigators have yet to determine what might have led to the fatal crash.
“We’re not ruling anything out,” said Landsberg, adding that maintenance is going to be a “big concern” in the investigation. “We don’t know at this point exactly what happened, whether it was a track issue, whether it was a mechanical issue with the train. All of those things are open.”
Rail safety experts say there could be numerous reasons for the derailment, including human error, track and equipment failure, which is more common on older equipment such as the bi-level Superliner fleet operating in the route, the oldest in Amtrak’s rolling stock.
Degradation in the vehicle and the track — neither of which by itself may be sufficient to cause a derailment — also could have led to the derailment, experts say.
Alan Zalembski, director of the University of Delaware’s Rail Engineering Safety Program, said it is less likely in this case that human error was a factor because that stretch of track and the train are probably fully equipped with the automatic braking system known as positive train control, designed to take human error out of operating a train.
The system automatically applies the brakes if a train is exceeding speed limits and can prevent a train from going down the wrong track if a switch is left in the wrong position. Amtrak or the railroad owner, BNSF Railway, have not said whether PTC was properly working at the time of the crash.
“Things like over-speed or something like that should not have happened,” said Zalembski. “I don’t think this was a case where the switch was improperly set because, among other things, the lead locomotive did not derail and positive train control would have picked up an improperly set switch.”
Local authorities on Monday identified the victims as Marjorie Varnadoe, 72, and Donald Varnadoe, 74, of Georgia and Zach Schneider, 29, of Illinois.
Some additional information on what is known so far, including info from a press conference from this afternoon, from Trains:
NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg told members of the media Monday afternoon that the eastbound Empire Builder was traveling at between 75 and 78 mph when it derailed along BNSF Railway’s Hi Line Subdivision on Saturday. Landsberg says the posted speed limit for passenger trains on the line is 79 mph and that the track is inspected regularly by its owner, BNSF Railway. “The derailment occurred on a gradual right-hand curve, and it occurred prior to reaching the switch that is there for a siding,” Landsberg told reporters. “There was a track inspection conducted on the 23rd by BNSF and they advised us they are conducting approximately two track inspections every week on this section of track.” Landsberg says the maintenance of the rail line will be a focus of investigators in the derailment probe.
Landsberg says a BNSF freight train passed through the area about 80 minutes prior to the Empire Builder ’s derailment, which occurred at approximately 3:55 p.m. Saturday. He says federal investigators are conducting frame-by-frame reviews of forward-facing camera footage from that freight train’s locomotive, as well as from the lead locomotive, Amtrak No. 74, which was allowed to be moved from the derailment scene along with its trailing locomotive and some cars on Monday.
JOPLIN, Mont. — The vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board says Amtrak’s Empire Builder was traveling below its posted speed limit when it derailed and partially overturned over the weekend in rural Montana, killing three people. NTSB...
One conjecture in the Times was that the unusual hot weather had caused a buckle in the track. I recall one trip on the Adirondack train that went even slower than their usual crawl speed (large parts of the trip are limited to 20 MPH) because, as they explained, the weather was very hot and the track prone to buckling.
How hot was it? I expect the weather has been much hotter in other parts of the country without this problem.
PastTense:
How hot was it?
At 4pm on Saturday, when the crash occurred, it was 83F in Joplin, MT (the nearest town). So, warm for northern Montana in late September, but not tremendously so. Then again, it looks like it was a sunny day, and direct sunlight on the rails might have heightened the potential for buckling.
https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/mt/joplin/date/2021-09-25
40 years ago I was stuck for a few hours in the Canadian prairies for what the conductor called a “sun kink” in the rails. One passenger jumped off and started walking through a wheat filed to a far-off farmhouse. I stayed in the bar car.
