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The train was heading to Washington when it hit a backhoe south of Philadelphia. Travel has been suspended along Amtrak's Northeast corridor. (April 3) AP
An Amtrak train slammed into a backhoe south of Philadelphia on Sunday morning, injuring passengers and halting service along much of the Northeast corridor, the rail service said.(Photo: Kyle Grantham, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal)
CHESTER, Pa.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>—<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Two Amtrak workers were killed and dozens of passengers were injured<span style="color: Red;">*</span>when a train bound for Washington, D.C., slammed into a backhoe south of Philadelphia on Sunday morning, authorities said.
The tragedy halted<span style="color: Red;">*</span>service along much of the Northeast corridor, Amtrak said in a statement. Federal investigators were at the scene.
Amtrak said the lead engine of the Palmetto<span style="color: Red;">*</span>train, which runs<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from New York City to Savannah, Ga., derailed in the crash at about 8 a.m. ET. There were 341 passengers and a crew of seven on the train, Amtrak said. Chester police said two people were killed.
Thirty-one passengers were transported to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, Amtrak said.
"Local emergency responders are on the scene and an investigation is ongoing. Northeast Corridor service between New York and Philadelphia is suspended,"<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Amtrak said in a statement. Amtrak later announced that service between<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Wilmington and Philadelphia was suspended but was expected to resume within hours.
Scores of police, firefighters American Red Cross representatives swarmed the area Sunday.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Matthew Lehner said federal investigators were on the scene, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>team of investigators.
Chester resident Andrey Brown said he saw construction workers on<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the tracks late Saturday night.
"Then when I woke up this morning my mom told me that there was a train crash," he said.
Donovan Bryan, a Defense Department worker from Springfield Va., said he was in the third car from the front when the train, rolling "full bore," hit the construction equipment.
"I heard the bang and saw the flames shoot up, and then the train eventually came to a halt after maybe around a minute or so," he said while waiting for his wife to pick him up at a staging area set up at a local church.
"You could feel the hit, and then (the train car) jumped and I saw flames,” he said. <span style="color: Red;">*</span>“And I felt the heat from the flames.”
Mariam Akhtar, of Washington, D.C., told 6abc.com<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that she was on the sixth car of the train.
"It felt like the train hit something and there were like three or four really big bangs and it kind of threw us off the seats we were sitting in," she said. "There was a lot of smoke and everybody was yelling. The train kind of stopped and later on, everybody was running to the front."
Ari Ne’eman, a disability rights activist from Silver Spring, Md., who was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>traveling from New York to Washington, told the Associated Press she was in the train's second car. She said the conductor sent people to the rear of the train, where they were evacuated to a nearby church.
“The car started shaking wildly, there was a smell of smoke, it looked like there was a small fire and then the window across from us blew out,” Ne’eman told AP.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“It was a very frightening experience. ...<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>I was just so thankful that the train had come to a stop and we were OK.”
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