Amtrak train derails
NORTHFIELD, Vt. — An Amtrak train headed from Vermont to Washington, D.C., on Monday hit rocks that had fallen onto the track from a ledge, spilling the locomotive and a passenger car down an embankment, derailing three other cars and injuring seven people, authorities said.
The Vermonter train, carrying 98 passengers and four crew members, derailed around 10:30 a.m. in Northfield, they said.
“This was a freak of nature,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said.
One of the injured people was airlifted to a New Hampshire hospital and was evaluated in its emergency room. The six others went to a hospital with injuries including neck, back and shoulder pains and lightheadedness.
Amtrak said a crew member was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries but four other people were released by evening.
Passenger Bob Redmond of Bay City, Mich., was taking a foliage tour and sitting in the front row of the third car when the train derailed. He looked outside the window and saw the car that had been ahead of his was now alongside him.
“It was just going the other way, and we started tipping sideways and down we went,” he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating. It was sending a small team rather than the full-blown effort made for a fatal Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia in May.
The track where Monday’s crash occurred had been part of a $220 million upgrade of New England Central Railroad tracks. In early 2013, after the upgrade had been completed, the speed limit in the area was increased from 55 mph to 59 mph.
Shumlin said there was no reason to believe there was any negligence on anyone’s part.
“We don’t have all the details, but this track was rebuilt, it was state-of-the-art track,” he said. “Ledge slides happen.”
Federal records show New England Central Railroad, which operates that stretch of tracks, has had four accidents since 2006 that could have involved track debris.
