Amtrak 301 off the tracks near St.Louis from Chicago

[Larry H.]

Just saw the news helicopter showing Amtraks #30l hit a truck outside of Brighton Illinois and the four cars are off the tracks.. Several injuries evidently as ambulances are at the road side. Forty people on board as described. All the cars are upright but the first three after the engine are pretty far off the rails and tilted along a road. The truck it hit is cut in half. Took only about a block to stop so don't know what speed they were doing.. The say they have live cam on the internet sight for channel 2 in St. Louis.

 

[sky12065]

Just saw the news helicopter showing Amtraks #30l hit a truck outside of Brighton Illinois and the four cars are off the tracks.. Several injuries evidently as ambulances are at the road side. Forty people on board as described. All the cars are upright but the first three after the engine are pretty far off the rails and tilted along a road. The truck it hit is cut in half. Took only about a block to stop so don't know what speed they were doing.. The say they have live cam on the internet sight for channel 2 in St. Louis.

Live Cam Link: http://media.myfoxstl.com/media/skyfox/index.html.

Too Late: Skyfox is now leaving the area!

 

[spacecadet]

Too Late: Skyfox is now leaving the area!

No doubt there's a traffic jam somewhere that's much more important

 

[steveb]

I was about one mile south of where the train derailed yesterday morning filming a passing Texas Eagle to post on YouTube. It would be something to be shooting some video and capture something like that. I hope everyone was alright. The St Louis news was interviewing an 86 year old woman who was on her way home from a cross country Amtrak trip. I guess it will be a good way to remember it.

 

[MrEd]

Due to issue with 301 the Texas Eagle went on a detour.

"

Thanks to cooperation with Union Pacific, Monday's Trains 21/321 operated between Chicago and St. Louis over a detour route, missing the intermediate stops. Passengers ticketed to those stops within Illinois will be provided alternate transportation on Lincoln Service trains, as above.

Tuesday's Train 22/322 is expected to operate normally in Illinois.

There were no serious injuries to Amtrak passengers or crew when a tractor-trailer vehicle obstructed the tracks at a crossing on tracks owned, maintained and dispatched by Union Pacific Railroad. Although the resulting collision caused the locomotive and the train's four cars to leave the tracks, they remained upright and coupled. One crew member and nine passengers were reported taken to local hospitals to be evaluated for non-life threatening injuries. Chartered buses brought the approximately 30 remaining southbound passengers to their destinations in Alton and St. Louis."

 

[rtabern]

WOW! WOW! WOW!

Ok, THIS is really scary for me because I actually had tickets for the train that derailed!! (I would have gotten off at SPI before the derailment though)

I was planning to go from CHI-SPI on #301 and then SPI-CHI on #22 on Monday. It's a trip that I make about once a month when I feel like going for a train ride while I'm doing in Chicago visiting my parents.

I exchanged the tickets a few weeks ago for Wednesday's #301 and #22 when I was asked to work on Monday.

Pretty scary... glad no one was seriously hurt..

More pictures here:

http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/081...s.4284ae05.html

 

[rtabern]

I am still planning on going on Wednesday's #301 and #22.

Do you think it will be reopened by then??

 

[George Harris]

Thanks to cooperation with Union Pacific, Monday's Trains 21/321 operated between Chicago and St. Louis over a detour route, missing the intermediate stops. Passengers ticketed to those stops within Illinois will be provided alternate transportation on Lincoln Service trains, as above.

Are we hallucinating?

Probably detour route: The former C&EI. One advantage of this is that the Cardinal uses the northernmost few miles of this line to reach Chicago, so getting a train onto it on the Chicago end is not an issue.

Does somebody out there know which way 21/22 went?

 

[heavesrock]

video of derailed train

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rro0iNwB3do

 

[heavesrock]

Thanks to cooperation with Union Pacific, Monday's Trains 21/321 operated between Chicago and St. Louis over a detour route, missing the intermediate stops. Passengers ticketed to those stops within Illinois will be provided alternate transportation on Lincoln Service trains, as above.

Are we hallucinating?

Probably detour route: The former C&EI. One advantage of this is that the Cardinal uses the northernmost few miles of this line to reach Chicago, so getting a train onto it on the Chicago end is not an issue.

Does somebody out there know which way 21/22 went?

Could it have followed the route to Quincy then BNSF river line south?

 

[sechs]

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?...2943&nseq=1

 

[George Harris]

Thanks to cooperation with Union Pacific, Monday's Trains 21/321 operated between Chicago and St. Louis over a detour route, missing the intermediate stops. Passengers ticketed to those stops within Illinois will be provided alternate transportation on Lincoln Service trains, as above.

Are we hallucinating?

Probably detour route: The former C&EI. One advantage of this is that the Cardinal uses the northernmost few miles of this line to reach Chicago, so getting a train onto it on the Chicago end is not an issue.

Does somebody out there know which way 21/22 went?

Could it have followed the route to Quincy then BNSF river line south?

In that case, it would have been "In cooperation with BNSF," of course assuming that the press knows the difference between the two. The ex-C&EI route would be shorter and likely faster.

 

[Larry H.]

Does any one still know how fast they were traveling. It wouldn't seem like it could stop with in the space of the length of the train and still have the last car at the crossing unless it had slowed considerably before impact?

 

[rtabern]

They must have done a quick repair job.

#301 was running the next morning and made it on-time into STL over the regular route

 

[battalion51]

Does any one still know how fast they were traveling. It wouldn't seem like it could stop with in the space of the length of the train and still have the last car at the crossing unless it had slowed considerably before impact?

The way this accident sounds is that the truck was stuck for a good period of time before the train got there. It's not like the truck pulled out in front of the train trying to beat it. Since it was stuck the Engineer probably had a decent period of time to dump the train and try to get it down to a stop, but alas it didn't work. This also explains why the entire train derailed. When you whack something without dumping you tend to push it off to one side. When you've already dumped it the train has a tendency to try to go over it, explaining the derailment.

 

[AlanB]

Does any one still know how fast they were traveling. It wouldn't seem like it could stop with in the space of the length of the train and still have the last car at the crossing unless it had slowed considerably before impact?

The way this accident sounds is that the truck was stuck for a good period of time before the train got there. It's not like the truck pulled out in front of the train trying to beat it. Since it was stuck the Engineer probably had a decent period of time to dump the train and try to get it down to a stop, but alas it didn't work. This also explains why the entire train derailed. When you whack something without dumping you tend to push it off to one side. When you've already dumped it the train has a tendency to try to go over it, explaining the derailment.

Even more so when what you're hitting is a very low trailer. If you look carefully in the videos, you can see that the trailer appears to be wedged under the engine. At the very least it was dragged by the engine, but it really does look like the engine's lead truck went right up and over it.