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Amtrak Train Hits Freighter in Chicagoland.

As a railfan, I can’t pass this one up. The Pere Marquette, (AMTK 371) a couple days ago hit the back end of an NS freight in the Chicago area the other morning.  It took a bit for the details of the crash to start filtering through… and the investigation is apparently taking some interesting twists. 

CHICAGO —(AP/FOX)- [1] An Amtrak train was going about 25 mph over the speed limit — despite a signal indicating another train was on the same track — moments before it hit a stationary freight train, injuring dozens of people, federal officials said Sunday.

The Amtrak train’s engineer told investigators he realized the speed limit was 15 mph in that stretch of track but accelerated to 40 mph anyway, National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Robert Sumwalt told reporters.

The speed limit on that portion of track, which is usually 79 mph, had been reduced to 15 mph by a red and yellow “restricting signal,” indicating another train was on the track, the official said.

The pictures I’ve seen show the power of the Amtrak train up on the back end of the last car of a single level container freight. Darn good thing it was a single level train or the two Amtrak employees in the cab would be dead right now. As it is, Amtrak has lost one of it’s P42’s… (Roster number 8, looks like… hard to see.)

Now, I don’t know the signaling along that line very well, but I do know there are reasons why such a signal in might be ignored, or the rules bent in those situations, most of which would involve some communications with the line’s dispatcher. The NTSB seems to me to be focusing unusually on why the trains were on the same track [2], which raises the possibility that the Norfolk Southern dispatcher in the area didn’t know of the problem.

Another wrinkle…According to railfans in the area, the 20 car NS train itself waiting at a signal, and had just gotten a green and was preparing to move when it was hit.