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On May 12, 2015, an Amtrak ''Northeast Regional'' train from Washington, D.C. bound for New York City derailed and crashed on the Northeast Corridor in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Of 238 passengers and 5 crew on board, 8 were killed and over 200 injured, 11 critically. The train was traveling at in a zone of curved tracks when it derailed. Some of the passengers had to be extricated from the crashed cars. Many of the passengers and local residents helped first responders during the rescue operation. Five local hospitals treated the injured. The derailment disrupted train service for several days. Federal authorities from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) believe that the derailment was most likely accidental, and are investigating minor damage to the windshield of the train which may have been caused by a projectile, but did not penetrate the glass.〔 Officials said the incident might have been prevented by PTC (Positive Train Control), a computerized speed-limiting system that was operational elsewhere on the Northeast Corridor, but whose activation at the crash site had been delayed due to regulatory requirements. The track in question was not equipped with ATC (Automatic Train Control) http://fortune.com/2015/07/24/automatic-train-control/ , which had been operational for years on the southbound track of the curve at which the derailment occurred, and which also would have limited the train's speed entering the curve. Shortly after the derailment, Amtrak completed that ATC installation on the northbound track.〔(Amtrak installs speed controls at fatal crash site ), CNN.com, 16 May 2015〕 A 1943 train derailment on the same curved section of tracks killed 79 and injured 117. The 2015 crash was the deadliest on the Northeast Corridor since 1987, when 16 people died in a crash near Baltimore.〔 == Derailment == At about 9:10 p.m. (EDT) on May 12, 2015, Amtrak's northbound ''Northeast Regional'' 188 departed Philadelphia's 30th Street Station en route from Washington, D.C., to New York City and Boston.〔 The train consisted of seven cars hauled by a year-old Amtrak Cities Sprinter (ACS)-64 locomotive, No. 601. The engineer was Brandon Bostian, who had begun working the route a few weeks prior. The train entered a four-degree left curve on the four-track line at the railroad's Frankford Junction in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, near the intersection of Frankford Avenue and Wheatsheaf Lane, and it derailed and crashed at 9:23p.m.(EDT). Passengers reported that the front of the train shook at first, then came to a sudden stop. The entire train went off the track, with three cars rolling onto their sides.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32716462 )〕 The manually controlled train should have been slowing to approach the curve with a reduced speed limit of in its approach and within it,〔〔 but instead, it had accelerated into the curve and was traveling at when its engineer〔 applied the emergency brake, and when it derailed, according to Robert L. Sumwalt, the National Transportation Safety Board's lead investigator, who cited the onboard event recorder recovered from the wreckage. Investigators are working to determine why the train entered the curve too fast. The windshield of the locomotive may have been hit by a projectile shortly before the derailment. Although the train was controlled manually, it had been equipped with positive train control (PTC), which can automatically stop a train or slow it to a safe speed regardless of engineer input. Amtrak officials said PTC had been installed on the tracks ahead of a Congress-mandated December 2015 deadline, but had yet to be operational due to "budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules". For four years, the railroad struggled with the FCC to purchase the rights to airwaves in the Northeast Corridor required for PTC, which might have limited the train's speed and thereby prevented the crash. During a press conference, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told reporters, "Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred." The track in question was not equipped with ATC (Automatic Train Control), which had been operational for years on the southbound track of the curve at which the derailment occurred, and which also would have limited the train's speed entering the curve. Shortly after the derailment, Amtrak completed that ATC installation on the northbound track.〔 This fatal derailment was the second at Frankford Junction. On September 6, 1943, on the same tracks and within two blocks of the 2015 crash site, an extra section of the ''Congressional Limited'', then the Pennsylvania Railroad's premier Washington-to-New York service, derailed approaching the same curve en route to New York, killing 79 people and injuring 117 others. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「2015 Philadelphia train derailment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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