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Amtrak Train Derails In Philadelphia
An anonymous reader writes: An Amtrak train has derailed in Philadelphia, injuring at least 50 of the roughly 240 people on board. The train was on its way from Washington D.C. to New York City when it derailed around 9:20pm local time. Former congressman Patrick Murphy, who was aboard the train, said, "It wobbled at first and then went off the tracks. There were some pretty banged-up people. One guy next to me was passed out. We kicked out the window in the top of the train car and helped get everyone out."
Any word on whether or not America will ever upgrade (and repair) it's rail lines?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'll stick to flying, it's much safer. Also, if I'm lucky I'll get a happy ending during the security pat-down.
Im sure its a mixture between driver error and system issues
The majority of derailments are due to track problems or striking vehicles at grade crossings, and nothing to do with the driver or the train. How is it that you are so sure?
2 thoughts:
The world is so small nowadays.
Why is this on Slashdot...!?
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Does it hurt when you attempt to think?
all under amtrak control
Perhaps you are thinking of Metro North which is most decidedly not the same as Amtrak?
Perhaps you are thinking of the crash involving undiagnosed sleep apnea (Metro North did not screen its employees for sleep apnea as NHTSA recommends for all operators). They changed his shift unexpectedly, his sleep apnea prevented him from sleeping well and he nodded off. It was 100% preventable if Metro North had followed the guidelines.
Perhaps you are thinking of the derailment and death on Metro North when a train plowed into a work crew. Again no fault to the train or the crew, but a management failure to enforce basic rules of safety.
Oh and you really think that amtrak sets its prices like that? woof!
No indications of terrorism are suspected.
How many deaths will it take before we as a country demand proper upkeep and upgrade of infrastructure. We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. Power, transportation, communication (telegram, phone, internet), water projects, and etc. Is sad how things have gone downhill so badly.
Also, how come we can get non-technical news on the day it happens, but screw getting anything technically interesting in a timely fashion...
because here on slashdot we might actually have an interesting discussion about why trains fall off the tracks, the merits of infrastructure investment, why people prefer different forms of transpotation, etc.
believe it or not some people come here for the comments
Maybe something to do with this?
thank you, you are correct. it seems i mixed metro north train derailment in with amtrak. Thank you for the correction
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Nobody ever said that we should upgrade every single mile of railroad in this country and nobody ever said that we should offer high speed rail service to rural Wyoming, but that won't stop people from telling us why it's hopeless to upgrade our rail system.
Hey this is entirely relevant! I lived in Philadelphia recently so I know where this is located. See? Relevant
Were you interested in every single other story on the front page? No? Then kindly shut the fuck up.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
There should be a systemd story here every day. The impact systemd is having on the Linux community, and the open source community, is without precedent. It's the kind of thing that should be getting constant coverage here at Slashdot, yet we hear almost nothing about it.
Systemd is revolutionizing (and not for the better) how each and every major Linux distro fits together. Not only is there the technical aspect to it, but systemd is dramatically changing how contemporary Linux distro projects are organized.
I mean, we're seeing Debian, one of the largest and most stable of all of the Linux distributions for around two decades, being absolutely destroyed, technologically and socially, by systemd.
Comparatively, systemd is a much bigger issue than SCO ever was. Systemd is much more harmful to Linux and open source than Microsoft ever was. Yet for something that's having such an impact on Linux, we're hearing next to nothing about it here at Slashdot. Systemd should be getting coverage above and beyond the coverage that SCO and Microsoft got in the past.
While systemd, which is indisputably the most news-worthy thing happening to the Linux community, goes almost unreported, Slashdot still manages to report on minor local incidents like this one, as well as so-called "social justice" issues.
Slashdot should do the right thing and focus on systemd. It's an issue that we need to look at, and we need to discuss. And we need this to be done right away.
How is a story about the most automated vehicle class on the planet, with some of the most powerful mobile engines not be of interest to people who like technology? Nerds like trains.
Learn to love Alaska
Bush did 9/11
In other news, the passengers were placed on buses to complete their trips. They arrived a day ahead of schedule.
if I'm lucky I'll get a happy ending during the security pat-down.
You must be a grand disappointment to your spouse if that's all it takes
You've been suffering for more than a decade. You poor soul.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
If you have only one day in Los Angeles, make it a train day!
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
there's no doubt that people in LA need more training
I'm glad you don't hate fun!
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Or just a mistake, which he acknowledged and thanked you for correcting. Twice.
And you guys were doing so well heading towards getting a "Reasonable Discussion on the Internet" medal, too.
The Mayor said during his quick press conference they won't speculate on what happened or how or why. Those are the interesting things up for debate in the court of Slashdot.
This should be on Slashdot in a week when the NTSB gives us some preliminary findings.
California is on pace to spent 2 trillion dollars on creating a new high speed rail like (between 80 mph and 400 mph). Too bad rail safety isn't what it needs to be.
What an asshole you are.
I read Slashdot for the articles...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Unfortunately their luggage was placed on air freight and half of it is currently believed to be somewhere in Seattle. The other half was recently spotted in a TSA frequented pawnshop in Miami.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
that's beyond pathetic
Hey! Some people get off on being degraded, you insensitive clod!
The Mayor said during his quick press conference they won't speculate on what happened or how or why.
We don't have to speculate on the immediate effects on local train transportation. We don't need to know what caused the wreck to know that it's going to be a major hassle for a lot of people until the rails are cleared. We don't need to wait for the official report on the cause before we start making alternative plans to get to work.
We don't need to wait for the official report on the cause before we start making alternative plans to get to work.
I don't get my news on weather and traffic conditions from a technology website.
in normal human conversation, errors are expected and normal
if someone is corrected and they flip out because of it, they are not socially well adjusted
if someone catches someone in an error and they flip out because of it, even after a normal, gracious apology, they are not socially well adjusted
congratulations, your behavior in this thread defines a deficiency in your basic social development
welcome to slashdot i guess
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but of all the web pages on the entire internet, you choose to look at this one and you even bothered to post a comment
why is it that you can't admit to yourself that the article was indeed interesting enough to click on? because that is precisely what you did.
Yes, I posted a comment about the inappropriateness of the story. Often, things tangential or meta to the story are discussed in the comments.
Interesting does not automatically make something appropriate for a given situation. If the interesting thing was the mechanism of the accident or the novel lifesaving techniques being used to rescue victims, it might have been more appropriate.
I suspect your Pandora stations all mercilessly bleed over into one another.
not bothering to look up basic facts is just a mistake?
On this site I am not at all surprised you can post at +2.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So the adoption of policies appropriate to Europe FOR THAT AREA of the USA is entirely appropriate. The failure to learn those lessons, and instead to insist on spraying AMTRAK money across totally useless routes as pork for congress rats, is an example of the problems of US democracy.
It's a stressful job working long hours away from friends and family. Have you ever been in a train cab? They are not designed for comfort .Noisy and diesel fumes. A friend worked on trains in New Mexico, good pay and benefits but he was stressed.
If you look at this amtrak passenger coach, its height seems to be above 20 feet. When something this tall, riding on narrow rails, takes a high speed turn, it's bound to overturn and derail due to high center of gravity. Why don't they make much shorter coaches to reduce the CoG? That might eliminate most of these crashes.
Did only one person survive miraculously unharmed?
It's bad enough that you bring a specific political party into the mix and throw blanket racial nonsense at your sycophant upmodders...but... Your main assertion without citation about white and black culture has been debunked by a black professor from a not-insignificantly liberal college called UC Berkeley.
If you want to know why America hasn't gotten past race, look no further than your mirror.
In other news, the passengers were placed on buses to complete their trips. They arrived a day ahead of schedule.
Keep it classy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This travel makes me wish for the old VI vs emacs arguments.
Just imagine what the comments from slashdot will be
Unfortunately, so wrong that I don't know why I bother. See train, which has vastly fewer accidents than cars or busses, cruising by the traffic jams out of Philly and into NYC.
But then, let's also remember that
a) after 9/11, for months, the pilots' union was saying that for trips under 300-400 mi, trains made *far* more sense, yet
b) Congress loves throwing money to airports, and roads, but
c) has yet to fully fund Amtrak.
And then there's outside the northeast corridor, which is where Amtrak owns the trackage and maintains it to high-speed passenger specs, the rest of the lines are leased from other railroads, who don't want to maintain them to the higher specs, and who frequently (there was just an article in mainstream media about this in the last week) will stop Amtrak to wait for their money-making freights.
mark
Come on! An Amtrak train falls of the track again and this is news and of interest to the technical community? We might as well have an article about how the sun rose in the east this morning. Not only is it just as much news worthy, but it includes subjects such as astronomy (which is even gooder than playing with chew-cho trains.)
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
So systemd caused the rail crash? I knew it!
Why should it be funded? It's a private entity receiving grants. As someone that travels weekly for work, I'm in support of rail in the U.S. But there's no sense in throwing money at something that isn't profitable.
Giving just three years of Interstate funding to Amtrak would allow them to complete all projects pegged for the next 30 years! And spending even just a wee bit more would allow for cross-country and regional high speed rail which effectively declutters airspace. Instead, Amtrak is asked to generate revenue on infrastructure that for the most part has not changed since the late 60s when Congress stood idle when the big passenger rail companies went belly up, instead billions were wasted on building an entirely unsustainable Eisenhower Interstate System. But yes, it's all Obama's fault.
We throw money at the highways, they are not profitable. We throw money at Congress, they are the opposite of profitable. We stuff gazillions into the military just to lose one war after another. I rather see a few millions more go to Amtrak, at least trains are cool.
lol. exactly. I've been reading for over 10 years :)