WASHINGTON — A deadly Amtrak crash that halted service up and down the East Coast Sunday marks the latest in a line of nagging safety problems for the railroad.
The Wall Street Journal reports the weekend crash is at least the fifth serious incident for Amtrak over the past 12 months.
Just last month, 32 were injured when an Amtrak train derailed in southwest Kansas. That was less than a year after last May’s derailment in Philadelphia, which left eight people dead and more than 200 injured.
Sunday morning, two were killed and 35 were injured when a train heading toward D.C. crashed into a backhoe near Philadelphia. It led to heavy rail delays along the Northeast Corridor, and although Amtrak was back on a regular schedule Monday morning, delays were expected to continue between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del. Train 151 is canceled, Amtrak says.
Investigators are working to determine why the construction equipment was not safely out of the way of the oncoming train.
“The rail-safety statistics have never been better, but nasty, nasty accidents are still occurring,” Steven Ditmeyer, a former federal railroad official who is now a consultant, told the Wall Street Journal.
“There are still significant vulnerabilities that exist and have to be addressed.”
A 2015 report from Amtrak’s inspector general’s office showed there were 1,301 employee injuries reported in 2013. That was up from 695 in 2009, but the report gave no exact reason for the increase.
There were five employee deaths between 2007 and 2015, The Journal reports.
