Dupont train crash 2 years later

[Music] thanks to those that GoFundMe for making videos like this one possible more on that at the end of the video [Music] the point defiance bypass bills built from 2010 to 2017 as a replacement for the BNSF mainline that runs along the Puget Sound Coast between the Nisqually River and Tacoma the 181 million dollar bypass uses an inland route that follows I 5 it was built by the Washington State Department of Transportation or WS thought on the right-of-way owned by Sound Transit the Regional Transit Authority the Amtrak Cascades service is a joint effort of WS dot and Oregon's Department of Transportation with Amtrak as the contracting operator the bypass was going to help save ten minutes of travel time between DuPont and Tacoma on December 18th 2017 Amtrak train 501 was heading toward the bypass on one of its first journeys toward Portland Oregon the Train consisted of WS dot siemens charger 1402 which was brand new at the time a Talgo six train set consisting of twelve cars an amtrak p42 181 on the rear the train departed Tacoma Dome station at 7:17 a.m. the train had a three passengers on board and a crew of six the engineer was accompanied in the cab of the locomotive by qualifying conductor who was making his first trip qualifying on the physical characteristics of the territory early in the trip the engineer and qualifying conductor called out waste sight signals and disgusted job related topics to help pass the time at 6:20 a.m. the engineer told the qualifying conductor that his trip was a learning experience for him including what throttle position he used to maintain speed that he had only operated one round-trip over the new territory a mile post 1986 was a curved bridge that carried the tracks over interstate 5 the bridges speed limit is 30 miles an hour a 501 is approached in at over 80 miles an hour now post 19 the overspeed alarm goes off inside the cab of the charger the engineer throws the brakes on the trains as it slows from 80 to 78 miles an hour but as the train gets closer and closer the engineer sees the curve and says [Music] I'm track 501 emergency see we are on the ground we are on the breeze five and destroy KTMs ASAP it looks like they're already starting to show up me and assess the trainers matcher 501 come in Sam check 501 answering Centralia north over hey guys what happened ha we're coming around the corner to take the bridge over i-5 there huh right northen Diwali and we went on the ground okay Ari's is everybody okay I'm still figuring that out we got cars everywhere and down onto the highway okay copy that engineer King apply with stop medication is a conductor we can't comply with stop signal over okay thank you thank you Amtrak five mile post are you roughly opposed if I can't reach you I'll try to call you okay what mile post you roughly to leave we're roughly mile post 2021 the bridge that goes over I five all have an exact mile post for you when I can the lead locomotive and six rail cars fall over the embankment to the west of the bridge 14:02 ends up on i-5 spilling around 350 gallons of diesel fuel as the impact ruptured the fuel tank can cause severe frame damage some of the coaches either fall off the bridge laying upside down or dangle from the bridge p42 DC 181 remains on the track unharmed it was the only part of the concepts that did not derail the falling coaches also fall around car traffic that was passing under the bridge at the time of the wreck including two trucks and five cars like this Kia Soul in total three people are dead all three that died came from the seventh coach and they were all rail fans including two members of the rail adversary group all aboard Washington 57 people are injured including another eight from the cars and trucks damaged by the falling train cars but what could cause such a freak accident like this an investigation was launched by the NTSB according to Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson he said that positive train control was not active on the track a contributing factor that led to accidents like the spurton Duvall derailment in December of 2013 and the Frankford Junction train wreck in May of 2015 positive train control or PTC for short monitors a translocation speed and direction via GPS if he detects that the train is going into a curve too fast it sends out a warning to the engineer and in 10 seconds if the engineer doesn't abide the emergency brakes apply and stops the Train as seen in this test footage by septa we basically have a great crossing just after the bridge we're simulating that the equipment is out of service and we normally have procedures to deal with this but now we can enforce it the engineer is attempting to violate that situation with the grade crossing and going well above some of their ice speed and now you can see that a penalty blade brake application was applied and we were shut off and stopped well in advance of the grade crossing the data recorders stated that the train was going over 80 miles per hour before de railing while the speed limit on the curve was thirty miles an hour the warning was not for the curve ahead but for the track speed as 80 miles an hour was the top speed of the service during the 20 seconds that the engineer was deciphering the warning he was not looking outside and therefore could not see the approaching danger when he did it was too late so on May 21st 2019 the NTSB published their final report blaming the crash on Sound Transit's failure to mitigate the curve and for Sound Transit failing to adequately train the engineer to handle the situation of the new line and equipment the engineer told investigators he was still a little unfamiliar with the operations on the new siemens charger locomotive and also stated II knew the curve was there and was aware of its speed restriction but forgot its location and didn't know where it was until it was right there in front of them he also stated that he mistook the milepost eighteen sign thinking goes milepost seventeen a full mile behind and also didn't see the speed restriction sign there due to the LED headlights reflecting off of them causing a glare in the end all passenger cars and charger 1402 were damaged beyond repair and scrapped Amtrak 181 which was undamaged was quickly returned back to service and still operates today the accident was yet another red flag on some railroads lack of progress on PTC implementation especially amtrak who were already were in hot water after the frankfort junction wreck amtrak temporarily suspended service for south of Seattle for several hours because of the accident reroute Rafic on the former Coast route and the older Tacoma station southbound automobile traffic was rerouted away from i-5 by LWS dot until the site was cleaned up and inspected on December 18th they finally allowed southbound traffic through from Dupont to State Route 510 near Lacey WS thaw announced on December 21st that it would not resume Amtrak service on the Point Defiance bypass until positive train control is implemented the line is still out of service as of may 2019 the accident caused at least forty million dollars in damage including the cost of the Train Set damage to vehicles and damage to the overpass two years have passed and with a good majority of railroads with PTC ready status it's hopeful an accident like this never happens again because if you're going to make a route that'll shave off ten minutes of windy travel you want make sure the path is safe and ready and you know what to look out for I provide a variety of content for people to see whether it be trainwreck documentaries engines a septa railfan videos you name it but since YouTube D monetizes a lot of my documentaries it's hard to earn any ad revenue from them as most of my monthly ad revenue is spent on such things like food and gas money and since I'll be rejoining College for the 2020 spring semester and I recently lost my financial aid for it that's gonna make things a little bit tight so I'm asking you for help to keep this channel alive follow a link below to the GoFundMe page where any and all donations will go to keep this channel running and even if they can't donate I greatly appreciate it if you'd spread the word as far as possible be sure to check out patreon as well where if you join one of two tiers you'll get access to exclusive content such as sneak previews railfan trip details and more also I recently checked my YouTube statistics and apparently seventy nine point four percent of you guys that watch my videos haven't subscribed yet while seventeen point four percent of you already have so by all means if you want to see more videos like these documentaries by all means subscribe it really means a lot to me and shows how much you really want to support me and with your support I'll continue to evolve and make better videos for you guys anyway that's all for now see you next time [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions

Views: 442,843

Rating: 4.8990793 out of 5

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Id: tZeG2NIALBk

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 21 2019