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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."

25 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Bummer by koan · · Score: 3

    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."
    1. Re:Bummer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure. Right after we fix your grammar.

    2. Re:Bummer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      America has the most rail of any country. More then the runner ups of both China and India, combined. It may not be the most sophisticated per mile, but good luck upgrading all of it.

    3. Re:Bummer by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      Wisconsin's upgrading rail. One of the main drivers is demand for fracking sand. Since Amtrak runs on mostly freight rails, you need to improve the case for freight to get better passenger service.
      http://www.jsonline.com/busine...

    4. Re:Bummer by FranTaylor · · Score: 2

      The tracks for the Northeast Corridor and Acela trains are predominantly owned by either Amtrak or the regional transit agencies such as MBTA or SEPTA. Almost none of this critical section of track is privately owned.

    5. Re:Bummer by steelfood · · Score: 2

      See, the airlines base their regional rates around Amtrak rates. So without Amtrak (or one with fewer hooks into local transportation), the airlines can screw over their customers that much more. The airlines aren't the only ones who'd love to see Amtrak disappear either. Big oil and their lackeys the car manufacturers all would love to see rail transportation disappear completely. They can't touch freight because that's private, but Amtrak is Federal which means it's easier to neuter.

      I haven't seen any indication Obama's done anything to reverse the trend of ripping up rails and replacing them with roads. I could be wrong. Now, interesting thing is that Amtrak doesn't own most of the rights of ways that it operates its trains on. The NE corridor (Washington-Boston) is one of the few where they do own the rail. And it's one of the few profitable lines. This derailment may be a symptom of insufficient funding to maintain their infrastructure (quick check of Wikipedia says this is the case). In which case, I'd say no, politics is holding Amtrak by the neck and we're not going to see much improvement if any at all to the nation's rail infrastructure.

      Hell, the bike movement is stronger than the streetcar/light rail movement, even in places where you can realistically ride bikes only around five to six months out of the year, so that tells you just where public sentiment is.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  2. Re:amtrak by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  3. Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I just (2-3 minutes ago) watched it in the morning news - IN A GREECE TV STATION!

    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!
    1. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why is this on Slashdot...!?

      Because some people who read slashdot also take the train

      Because technology failures are interesting to technology people

      Because intrastructure issues are important to the economy that employs slashdot readers

    2. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      American's don't care about all the stupid shit that happens in Greece

      They're not too concerned about plurals and possessives either.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      This derailment happened on the busiest passenger railroad line on the whole planet.

      I have ridden on this line from NYC to DC. I have also ridden on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo. There is absolutely no way that this Amtrak line is the world's busiest.

    4. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      Between the three of them this is the highest capacity passenger rail in the world.

      No way. The Yamanote line carries more than 3 million people on a typical day. During rush hour, a train arrives every three minutes. This Amtrak line is no where close to that. This train was carrying 258 people. The Japanese pack that many people into a single compartment.

    5. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      There's no such thing as sodium zincide, and even if there was you've got the valencies wrong.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    6. Re:Just watched it... IN A GREECE TV STATION... by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, for starters, zinc is Zn, not Zi, so it's not going to be NaZi no matter how you arrange the atoms.

  4. Re:amtrak by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!

  5. Re:relevance? by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  6. Re:amtrak by ganjadude · · Score: 4

    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
  7. straw man bashing festival in progress by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:relevance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  9. Re:relevance? by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Obongo did it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, the passengers were placed on buses to complete their trips. They arrived a day ahead of schedule.

  11. Re: lesson 1 by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    32,000+ car accident deaths in the USA in 2013.
    34 rail deaths in 2013.

    Wow, Ruby really does suck. I'm sticking with PHP.

  12. Re:amtrak by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:amtrak by circletimessquare · · Score: 2

    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
  14. Re:amtrak by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    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)