The Washington Amtrak Cascades Train Disaster 2017 | Plainly Difficult Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
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On December 18, 2017, Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501 derailed near DuPont, Washington, United States......
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00:00 Intro
00:56 Background
06:20 Disaster
12:04 Investigation
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Here’s This Weeks Outro video in full: th-cam.com/video/_yzz5i_hx8I/w-d-xo.html
Also whilst you are here do you want to see more train based disasters?
Let me know below 👇
Would love to see more Train based diasters
yeah train disasters are interesting ones to learn about
I was just watching a train wreck video when you posted this! 😂
I suggest the Eschede train disaster in Germany.
Yes please, more international ones aswell
My best friend is an Amtrak engineer. The morning this happened I thought she had told me she would be driving this route, and no one could get ahold of her. I drove to her house and broke in to see if she was there. She was asleep. 😅
:D
Well! That's a relief :)
That's not good. Break ins can be deadly.
But good stuff 👍
I knew several engineers for amtrak on the line, when one didnt answer messages It became obvious who, it was. I worked with a retired amtrak road forman a few days after. If he had put the talgo into emergency the P42 would have folded the train up like a accordion. Having that boat anchor on the back is not good.
@@martinadams7949 Can you explain the Talgo to me? I've seen that word a few times now and I'm not sure what it is.
A tragic reminder of the phrase "Signs are not infrastructure."
Very true!
I always liked guidelines are written in pencil, rules are written with blood
@@samarnadra I'm reminded of a joke in The Simpsons, where Lisa comes across a sign saying "Do not enter. Or do, I'm a sign, not a cop." If a state puts up signs telling you you're in imminent mortal danger every ten yards, that means you stop taking the signs seriously. The clearest example is with stop signs in America. There are so many of them, and it just leads to people ignoring them, mildly slowing down, but only because they have to make the corner. Meanwhile, over in Europe, we only use stop signs at intersections with poor visibility, but traffic volumes too low to justify a traffic light. If that sounds like that wouldn't leave very many intersections, it doesn't, and that's the point. It means you take the sign seriously the few times you do come across it.
@@samarnadra You're talking about signs becoming self aware? A Sign-ularity? God help us if nothing is done to avert it!
@@SRFriso94 as an American, I completely agree with you about our stop signs. A very high percentage of them should really just be yield signs. (Not sure if those have a different name in Europe; the down-pointing triangle sign with white face and red border).
And actually an unsigned intersection _implies_ "yield" anyway! There's a system for "who goes first." (as you said, only low-volume roads)
I remember this. What you don't mention was part of the aftermath. I5 is the main road through that part of the area, everything else is a small 2 lane road, 1 lane each way. these roads go through small town with stop lights and slow speed limits. The traffic going north, or south was backed up for days, and what was a 10-minute trip, became a 2 to 3-hour trip. Hotels were booked solid as well.
I've driven that section I don't know how many times and was on that stretch about ten minutes before this accident happened.
It was horrible.. I was in the process of moving from fife to Portland and it was obvious it was a tight ass turn
There was supposed to be a bypass freeway built years ago, but environmentalists successfully stopped construction in court over loss of squirrel habitat.
Since then, the area is an air pollution nightmare, with stop and go traffic for part of the day-especially weekends.
Squirrels are abundant, though.
@@radsdad1 of course….I love squirrels….but now they can get run over by the million cars stuck in traffic
I was 5hrs late getting home and I was lucky
I'm a former Amtrak conductor and I remember telling my wife the moment I heard about this that it was the lack of training that caused it. We were living in Portland up November 2017, a month prior to us moving, we took a Saturday and decided to make a day trip up to Seattle to sightsee. It had rained the night before and caused a landslide on the old rail line. We only made it as far as Olympia. We decided just scrap the day and return to Portland. During all this I spoke with the conductors on board and asked why they could just use the bypass. One of them told me they needed a pilot (a pilot is a term used for an engineer who is qualified for the line to help guide the engineers who are not.) I thought it was strange that so close to the opening and no one is trained for this. That's what lead to my conclusion that it was lack of proper training.
I loveee Amtrak it’s one of my favorite train companies would you mind telling me what’s it’s like as a conductor?
@@Mochii.1 it is pretty much the only passenger line, besides metrolines within cities ? It could be wildly wrong...
How come we are still only using a visual to determine where they are.
@@eveconnor9581 I don't know the positive answer but I bet they do now. I live in a pretty backwards city - New Orleans - and with an app, I can see where every streetcar/city bus is in real-time. I bet they have it now. You would think anyway.
Slides stop trains in the Puget Sound all the time.
oh man I'm from WA and literally watched the whole 4 hour NTSB meeting about this and it was WILD, if you ever wanna hear NTSB officials just absolutely roast people, it's a worthwhile watch
I will be watching that thank you!
me too! I want to see that. The NTSB doesn't mince words!
There's three agencies to never fuck with. Fish and Game, the ATF, and the NTSB. No humor, no fucks given. I'd rather deal with the IRS for a year than any of those three for even a minute.
is there a video? im curious!
@@jjno yes! it's like 4 hours long but you can always skip parts that you aren't interested in th-cam.com/video/EgLgl_ybtok/w-d-xo.html
Two of my friends passed away in that crash. Was awful, especially since they were so excited to be on the first run of the new segment.
Sorry for your loss.
I am so very sorry for the loss of your friends. When this accident happened, and they talked about the victims of the crash, my heart broke even more. Peace.
That's terrible, I'm so sorry.
I had a friend that was supposed to be on that train. He called me asking for a ride to Portland because he missed his train. He didn't know about the accident yet. I was happy to hear is voice and he had no idea why.
Sorry for your loss
I drove south through the accident site the day before it happened. 2 days later while returning home found northbound I-5 was closed at the accident site. The state did a lousy job of signing the detour that went through Yelm and Spanaway back to Tacoma. I knew where I had to go, there were hundreds that didn't and got lost on the side roads east of Olympia. I called my brother, he works for the WSDOT, all he could say was "We know, we know".
Muricuh: snatching regression from the jaws of how the rest of the world learned same things years ago.
@@KristaMae Because way too many people in this country have the attitude of "We can't do that because that's what those gawldurn foreigners do!"
Right we sure do love our big powerful expensive government
@@ryanfritts1574 da leftist Dems
Washington signage is absolute crap everywhere in the state. So this isn’t surprising. Most signs are place as a “if you can read this your already in the wrong lane and can’t correct it now” joke.
So a good friend of my brother was on this train and died. He has a big transportation geek. Loved trains, buses, etc. The crazy and sad thing was he wasn't supposed to be on this train. He had a ticket for a later run that day. Amtrak called him and let him know there was still tickets available for the earlier train so he switched his ticket.
Are you talking about Zach? I miss him 😔 he was my friend
@jlucky: sorry to hear, what rotten luck!
Always wondered why, in the absence of positive train control, they don't put up big red electric flashing signs across the tracks that say "Sharp Turn Ahead - Speed Limit 30" (or whatever the relevant warning would be). Seems those would be a lot harder to miss.
All about $$$- railroads don't spend money unless required/mandated to do so which unfortunately often times only comes after accidents like this.
Because money.
Or have competent drivers.
@@radsdad1 The investigation indicated the driver was competent, but insufficiently trained. AND - his checkpoint sign was "washed out" by the engine's headlights - a very, very poor design. The entire point of railroad, indeed ANY transport safety, is not to rely solely on the competence of the people involved.
@@j887276 Also it's the freight railroads that would have to do it, and they aren't usually travelling all that fast anyway.
I lived in Lakewood when this happened. My dad passed under that overpass on the northbound side just minutes before it happened. Also, some pronunciation help: Puget = PEW-Jit. Nisqually = Nes-Squall-lee. Love your vids!
I remember it too, I had taken this route from Seattle to Portland and back the week prior. Neat to see a local video on this channel!
Thank you for doing the pronunciation assistance. I winced everytime the narrator attempted to say Nisqually. I was one of the safe but unfortunate residents who could barely leave my house for the three days it took to clear I-5 of the wreck, as they re-routed traffic down the closest highway. 10 miles of highway nearly parked for three days. One friend reported it took him 7 hours to go 3 miles.
I was glad he at least pronounced "Oregon" correctly but then, yeah... Poo-jet Sound... I'd make a diarrhea joke here but there's just too many to choose from and my brain's locked up due to choice paralysis.
I can kinda understand with some of those indigenous names, though. There's little more giggle-worthy than listening to a California transplant trying to figure out how to pronounce "Willamette."
@@bcazz5202 Now you know how irritating it is when a US citizen mispronounces place names in other countries.😁
Pronunciation has never been John’s strong suit. Remember his early videos, back when he focused entirely on radioactivity incidences, where he pronounced “roentgens” (the units of radioactivity) as “rotajens”? :P
Have you considered doing a video on the 2014 Oso Landslide? As a lifelong resident of Western Washington, this Amtrak Cascades derailment and the Oso landslide are the two disasters I feel gripped the region the hardest during the 2010s. The gist of the landslide was that there was plentiful data to suggest that the hillside would eventually give way one day, and when it did, it wound up being the deadliest landslide in recent American history. So much could have been done to prevent it, yet no action was taken.
Thank you for the suggestion
@@PlainlyDifficult of course! Thanks for covering this! As an aside, your video on the Bellingham Olympic Pipeline disaster is another one of my favorites. I used to live in the neighborhood where that explosion happened, and so few people today even realize that a disaster of that scale ever took place there. It's a great video to be able to show people!
The Oso slide would be perfect for this channel to cover
@@PlainlyDifficult if you do the oso slide, be sure to mention the residents refusal to move, since there was no relocation assistance
Oso definitely deserves a video.
Once again, people are injured and lose their lives because someone isn't willing to spend the money required to make something safe.
@Syd McCreath No it isn't.
I've lived in the area my whole life, and I was greatly affected by this derailment. I was even on-board for the first run over the line on 11-18-21. One piece of the aftermath that doesn't get talked about very much is that the old Talgo trainsets were pretty much retired for good, with WSDOT scrapping their sets and Amtrak recently auctioning theirs off. The Talgo trains have been a major part of PNW rail history, and most agree they should be preserved. The victims of this tragedy were rail enthusiasts as well, known in the community; and I feel that they would have wished for the sets to be preserved as well.
Those old talgos were maintenance nightmares, not surprised they went to the scrapers
@@TheRedneckExpress True, although it is a little strange considering their original plans pre-501. In some WSDOT documents from a month prior they indicated the possibility of buying more Talgo cars from Europe and incorporating them into the existing sets; what a strange alternative to what we actually got
I rode the Talgos in the Northwest and found the seats very uncomfortable. A lot of the stuff didn't work. I think the California Cars were much better and you didn't need to have a technician ride every trip.
I remember being in the UK once and having a discussion with someone about rail travel in the US vs. Europe. One reason I gave for Americans avoiding it was that Amtrak crashes every year or two. The person thought I was nuts until I showed them a list of Amtrak crashes over the years! That said, it is crazy that in 2017 the trains didn't have an electronic warning system in the train that clearly shows speed limits and upcoming hazard areas.
Y'know, it's 2022. We could probably have all rail service automated by now, I'm sure.
@@mikehall3976 you can’t when there’s literally no money to bring that kind of equipment and upgrade the existing systems to that. Trust me we do not pay enough money into our public infrastructures. We should have it but constantly ppl complain when there’s even an idea of a fare hike which I understand but if they’re not gonna supply any other source of funds these systems will stay archaic. Where we are is a direct result of the US not caring about public systems like basic transit and bus services but having tons of money for military tech. If we just have a fraction of that to transit and railway lines we could maybe even compare ourselves to the rest of the world but that’s a pipe dream at this point.
@@mikehall3976 i.e. some underground services in london are automated for years now. Europe's ETCS (European Train Control System) is also at least ready for some grade of automation, as the train knows all the relevant parameters for driving - not only speed limits, but an actual speed curve, the slope of the tracks, fine-grained location beacons to ensure accurate tracking and other relevant data. Switzerland has it on all regular gauge tracks, while i.e Germany is way behind and hindering development, specification and rollout, as always - having only a few significant segments with ETCS in total...
@@mikehall3976 in the year of our lord 2022, we can't even run trains on electricity even though the costs would be nothing
@@AsbestosMuffins Nothing? You might live in an alternative universe where electricity costs nothing to generate.
I was actually on I-5 heading south as this happened. We were about five minutes north of the overpass, just right before the last exit when we saw a bunch of tail lights up ahead and decided to pull off the freeway and go around, just in case the backup was going to take a while to clear. We stopped at a truck stop to get early lunch and that’s when we found out about the derailment. We got obscenely lucky, we had been a few minutes late leaving because we’d forgotten something and had to go back right after we got out of the neighborhood. I’ve always wondered if we hadn’t forgotten that item would we have been under the overpass when the train derailed?
Luck, chance or the universe sending you back? Glad you were late!
This was such a tragedy because it could have been prevented. There were a lot of people blaming the engineer but WSDOT and Amtrak were rushing to get the bypass open, their negligence is what really caused this accident.
Though it was lucky that it happened earlier in the morning, a lot of people going to JBLM use I-5 to commute there. It's kind of amazing that more people didn't get hurt.
A little like operation warp speed 🤔
Yeah I'm surprised more people weren't hurt or killed. It's good that they weren't but this could have been prevented!
My issues with PTC aside, the fact they didn’t upgrade the line is a red flag. Doubly so for the engineer not at least trying to hit the brakes. I can understand misinterpreting or flat out missing the signs from headlight glare (a little concerning that’s not supposed to happen for wayside signs but the Chargers do have pretty intense headlights compared to older Amtrak power) but the fact he entered the curve only 1 mph below the speed limit rubs me the wrong way…
he couldnt even press the fucking brake, absolutely useless excuse of a human being
My wife was on this train. She survived. Traumatizing.
It is always fun to hear folks who aren't from the Pacific Northwest try to pronounce the various names
Same thing with the place and street names here in Southern California
Listening to someone not from here try to pronounce Puyallup is always hilarious
Being from Long Island I totally get that.
Not that I could _do_ it, for the northwest, mind you.
Same! But I sort of expect it, and I think the quality of the rest of the video more than makes up for it.
Hope you are feeling in the pink by now. I like that you pointed out that the Amtrak system in this country falls short of the safety record of most UK/ European systems. We acted for a long time as if trains were rapidly fading into obscurity and were only fit for freight hauling. I love traveling by train, and hopefully we will catch up someday when people figure out again that leisure travel is supposed to be leisurely. Getting there yesterday is only possible if you know someone who flies a TARDIS. Slow down and enjoy the trip, folks! More train videos from PD are called for.
Amtrak's standards seem to be behind Canadian safety standards as well, Lac Megantic disaster notwithstanding. I remember years ago when a friend of mine was training (pun not intended) on his new job working on the commuter rail network surrounding the Greater Toronto Area, locally known as the Go Trains, he spent months simply observing, and learning both every centimetre of the driver's cab, and every metre of track that he'd be driving, before they'd let him drive a train under supervision. Amusingly, during that time they also discovered that he has a very pleasant speaking voice, so they had him record the station stop announcements for the entire system. For a while around 2010, everyone on commuter rail around Toronto was hearing my friend Steve's voice announcing their stations.
Having a personal driver/transport is just so much better sorry
Amtrak is incredibly expensive and slow, and odds are good where you're going is not where Amtrak is going, it's probably not even going near where you're going unless you're travelling between seriously major cities like DC and NY. I looked into taking Amtrak home to southern Illinois one year, just 750 miles driving, it would have cost $600, taken 2 1/2 days with multiple transfers and it would drop me off 100 miles from home. And I just thought I'd try and see what I could do now and I can't even get between the nearest Amtrak station to the Amtrak station that's 100 miles from my home anymore, somehow there is no connecting service? How can Amtrak have 2 stations with NO way to get from station 1 to station 2.
@@HadToChangeMyName_TH-camSucks Yes, American towns just aren't built without cars in mind, especially the ones further west. You NEED a car to keep employed, to shop, etc. And our entire infrastructure is built around roadways. Southern IL? In St. Louis, apparently we actively petitioned against building railways, thinking barges were going to be the "next big thing" in transportation. Our Amtrak station has horrible reviews, bums loitering. It's a bloated bureaucracy filled with diversity hires who have no initiative to keep anything running on time; innovation is the last thing on their mind. I think, on average, it's close to 40% of trains that are delayed. When you have no competitors you can treat your customers like crap. Tried to give them a chance when going on vacation to N'awlins... Faster just to drive. Also, I'm in a suburb outside the county, and there is literally no public transport to or from STL to keep the "crime" out, if you know what I mean.
@@pickles3128 I used the "new" downtown station around 2009 or so, and it's actually pretty nice. (Or at least was back then.) Of course, it's 'also' built partly under a highway overpass... Also, if you're heading on the line to Kansas City, those trains actually stop at Kirkwood station, a restored c.1900 railroad station used as a railroad station, and you can get on there. Sadly the Kansas City line is a dead end, route-wise. Also try the Illinois state service to Chicago, it's been upgraded to 110 mph operation and the schedule cut to 4 hours, since somehow all the 2008 stimulus money for high speed rail wound of there from a couple states refusing the funds and California being nowhere near close enough to breaking ground, and as a result was actually enough to pay for the whole thing (which by the rest of the world's standards was actually pretty modest). Now it's faster than driving, Chicago you don't need a car in, and the business class "seat" from 2008 was a full-blown -reclining armchair- that's STILL the most comfortable chair, vehicles or otherwise, I've ever sat in. (Legroom there is so incredibly enormous that reclining won't bother those behind you, unlike domestic airline first class.) Tickets for business class back in 2009, bought a couple months in advance, cost only 40 bucks, so it's about the same cost as driving or less.
Good to hear you made a full recovery man!
I've heard the news about this, but didn't know the full details... it's like yeesh, a crash on maiden voyage.
Sounds like one of those cases where several people involved got too up on their noses about the thing being safe, broke all sorts of rules with a cost down or fast launch in mind, and made others pay the price for their mistakes.
The issue being not so much that we didn't know better, but that we got too lax on well known safety practices... on the older historical videos we can understand the safety standards didn't exist yet, growing pains, lack of tech for support, etc.
This one is more on the corruption side. It's pretty weird that not only it crashed on maiden voyage, the company ignored all sorts of safety measures, and even... it's like no one was monitoring the situation with a bit of anxiety?
Perhaps it's the speed of society these days, but I'd kinda expect for a maiden voyage (well, not entirely, just a segment of the route I guess) to happen during day time with good visibility and emergency services at the ready for any eventuality... or that at the very least someone would've gone through the most dangerous portion of the new track with the pilot and engineer thoroughly.
Anyways, good report as always!
Thank you!
This railway could learn a lot from road signs too!
Bend ahead... slow... have you slowed down yet! Max 30mph! ...in nice bright signage. Radium would be a great paint to use 😬🤦
The new rail built is just rusting away. Service hasn't been started on that line since the accident.
There's NOTHING dangerous about the route... I drive right next to this track every single day
And a lot of the passengers, including some victims were train and Amtrak enthusiasts. It was super tragic.
This happened a few hundred feet ahead of me. I'm glad I wasn't 5 seconds faster than I was. I helped get some people out the cars.
It's really odd how small the world can be, I was a mile or two ahead of you. I was on the way from JBLM to my home on the other side of Olympia. Passed right under maybe two minutes before the derailment. I remember seeing all the emergency services heading north on I-5 thinking there must have been a bad car accident. Didn't find out until I got home.
You are lying you are likely mistaken.
@@Mario87456 right....
@@dickfitzwelliner2807 Or you are possibly saying this only for attention either way you are lying.
@@Mario87456 yeah cus you really know me....
Why would make up claims on a comment section that is anonymous? What's there to get out of it?
Good video. A couple minor additions and thoughts. The rear locomotive, Amtrak P42 #181, was the only portion of the train undamaged and was returned to service in 2018. It was still in service as of 2022 but is slated for retirement as Siemens delivers more Chargers to Amtrak. All the other Talgo trainsets that WSDOT owned were retired and sold to a California scrapyard and Amtrak provided Comet style coaches to make up for the shortfall in equipment until new passenger equipment can be built for Cascades service. These will be more conventional passenger cars and not the articulated Talgo type.
Also, this section is about three miles south of the very large military Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM). Since rail signs can be hard to see (or go missing entirely due to vandals), railcrews will often use unofficial landmarks that are passed on in the institutional knowledge of operators. In this case, once JBLM is passed, an operator should be extra attentive of where the signs are and be ready to apply brakes at the right time. The transition is quite abrupt from the built up base and the forested area before the bridge.
I’d also wish to see more of those Talgo sets. Sure, they aren’t able to be lengthened/shortened, nor are they maintenance efficient (being if there is one faulty car, the entire set is out if service). But they are comfortable, modern, advanced, and of acceptable reliability. It is sad that the construction “did not meet safety standards” and “did not adequately protect the occupants” in the N.T.S.B. accident report, though.
@@RailsofForney there we’re back and forth lawsuits between talgo and the ntsb about that with talgo saying they were fine but that newer sets did meet modern crash tests the fact the sets were older meant they only complied with older crash rules
Man I really wish they were going to get new Talgo trainsets they really defined the Cascades service. Especially if they changed the baggage cars roof fairings to more closely match the roof line of the new Siemens locomotives
The chargers are very poor in reliability so why last year? Is 181 still running?
@@RailsofForney because 2022 was the last date I can reliably cite. It may still be running.
Personally i'd still like to see a video on the salem train wreck from 1971 or the 1939 city of san fransisco and 1995 sunset limited train sabotages, all three are pretty fascinating to me.
I remember this, I was at work in Tacoma that day and still kinda new the the area. All my coworkers had heard about it on the radio and I remember the store shutting down for a while. People were calling their loved ones to see if they were okay. That next few days was crazy. I’m so surprised you covered this
Meanwhile in China all major cities are connected by high speed rail allowing people to travel quickly and comfortably between cities without burning fossil fuels. To call America's infrastructure 'out of date' is a massive and comical understatement. The US government has let its people down epically. Perhaps this is why China now has a longer life expectancy than the US.
As a UK based former train driver (I retired in 2020), the lack of training and safety aids that caused this crash reminded me so much of Ladbroke Grove. That crash happened because the driver of the commuter train had not trained on the route out of Paddington properly, and because there was no SPAD mitigation at the signal he ran past. The result ? He ran out onto the up fast line in the down direction and hit an incoming HST head on. Training systems along with the track and the signalling layout at Paddington were all changed after the crash. I did ride on the Cascades service too, in early June 2018 from Seattle to Vancouver. Other than the train running late, there were no issues - it was a comfortable ride and the scenery was stunning.
Thanks for covering this incident. I was no longer living in Seattle when this happened, but was "lucky" enough to be in town for some other unfortunate public-infrastructure failures in the 1990s. I'd love to have you bring your thorough approach to bear on the 1990 sinking of the I-90 floating bridge (a.k.a The Lacey V. Morrow Memorial Bridge), which was an especially wacky instance of the greater Seattle/Tacoma area's bad luck with bridges. Hope you're feeling better!
I'm being trained as a new amtrak employee and they played the 911 calls in class for us they are chilling. They pushed that amtrak needed to change because of this and other incidents. I've gone through 2 weeks of just safety training before I've even started my job on the tracks.
I remember this vividly. My best friend was on the train the day before and I was so shaken that it could've been her.
As a former Tacoma resident, I found this video interesting… and not surprising considering what I knew of the incompetently run Washington State ferry system with all of its collisions and mishaps. It is no excuse , but our car-obsessed culture of North America has made it economically impossible to have a modern, safe commuting train system that approaches that of many third world countries. Maybe we’ll get the running of trains right in 30 or 40 years?
As an island county resident I agree (although, ironically I live in one of the only places that still has free a transit system).
I'm a Bellingham resident and I found this surprising when it happened
Or cut a couple hundred billion from the nearly trillion dollar defense budget
Hold on guys! WSDOT has to do their 5 year environmental study first.
@@theeasternfront6436 I know you're being snarky, but these assessments ARE actually important. And some do take an annoying amount of time.
Thank you for sharing your hard work with us despite your illness, John. Best wishes for a rapid and full recovery.
I was going north bound on I5 that morning on my way to a work meeting. It had only been approximately 5 minutes or less after the derailment happened. I wanted to stop and help but I couldn’t…I still feel guilty about that 😢 thank you for covering this tragic event. I would be interested in you covering the oso landslide disaster as well.
The Point Defiance line was the best part of the trip coming up from Portland. Slowly, just a few feet above Puget Sound, you wind your way into Tacoma as the sun set behind the Olympic Mountains !:-)
Brilliant job (as always) John! I'd say you've made yourself more than deserving of some honey ginger tea, and a restful couple of weeks, even if you've already recovered.
I think a video explaining positive train control, or the general state of train automation could be very interesting. Though I can imagine it having a somewhat narrower audience...
May your southern corner of London shake its drabness for even just a day, before the long dark sets in
Glad you enjoyed it Thank you!
I could have sworn that John had already covered PTC in a previous video of his, but alas. I've gone through all of his train crash videos just now to find it and the one I found where he goes into a wonderfully nerdy side quest is this one about the Horror of Harrow (the Harrow & Wealdstone crash) where he goes into detail about UK signal aspects:
th-cam.com/video/7BjPk15Lfxk/w-d-xo.html
And then there's these two about the Ladbroke Grove and Clapham Junction disaster, respectively, that each go into some detail about block signaling systems if you haven't already seen those:
th-cam.com/video/CpxrzPfeYLk/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/rl_S6aEAm8Y/w-d-xo.html
So yea... JOHN! The nerds want to see you nerd about Positive Train Control if you haven't already! :D
Hope you feel better, John. Glad that although the investigation found the accident was due to driver error, it wasn't his fault.
Because AMTRACK is a government entity, they never bear any cost for being wrong, incompetent, or skipping safety. Just part of the reason I would never ride on any AMTRACK service.
You mean like any other profit drive service?
@@CB-vt3mx I'm sure you also boycott government-controlled roads, right? And aircraft since their safety relies on government-run air traffic control?
@@CoastalSphinx bet you took the warp speed jab too
Those poor Talgo sets... they only operated on the Cascades. This accident got the rest of them pulled from service until new ones could come in.
If we're going on a rail disaster streak, you should review the Lac-Megantic runaway train disaster!
I think he already did?
@@AnimeSunglasses No, he hasn't done Lac-Megantic yet.
@@wceyuki ...huh, I must have got it confused with the half dozen similar channels I follow.
I worked briefly on building the Holgate facility as an apprentice electrician. That was in 1996. I think 21 years is enough time to implement PTC.
I live in Washington very near to this crash site. This is the best assessment (video) I have seen on this wreck. Please check to see if the owner of the route restricted Amtrak's use of this section for training. I think that was a factor. Also, check to see if the date of the wreck was a deadline date for some sort of funding, etc. (In other words, they were pressured to go before they were ready)
Ohh more railway content
😬
It's becoming a track record?
Sorry for the bad pun, I have a tendency to go off the rails.
@@Tuck-Shop Made me giggle and I haven't even had my coffee yet 👏
How cool 😎 would it be if all trains 🚂 and that I was not on had a fiery crash 💥?
Voice sounds good :)
The headlights washing out a sign seems to also be a huge problem.
So glad someone finally did a video on this disaster--you can tell all of us locals are excited to see it.
I remember this. My mother didn’t let us take the train down to Seattle for years after that, scared it would derail again, even though the derail was past that point… still, it was such a big event in the North West.
Thanks for this one John! I remember when this happened but didn’t know many of the details. I am from Tacoma so I know the area well. I’ve been riding the Cascades line to Portland and back regularly since the mid 90’s. Definitely prefer the Point Defiance line better than the prairie line. PD is slower but so much more beautiful as the train traces along Puget Sound through Old Town Tacoma (right past the house I grew up in) and through the tunnel under Point Defiance then past The Narrows Bridges and beyond. They only just stared using the old line through South Tacoma in the last year. They also just opened the brand new Amtrack station at Freight House Square. It’s nice and new and much better than the old facility on Puyallup Ave. it’s pronounced (pew-Al-up). Non Washingtonians never get that one right! Anyway, thanks for a great vid! Hope you feel better soon!
Actually, you could probably make an entire series for the channel just about Amtrak disasters. By the time you get through the current list of existing ones, there are bound to be more.
Aww sorry you've been sick! I hope you recover - fully! - soon.
This train wreck happened about a mile down the road from my house, by the way. This is the most comprehensive info I've seen about it. Well done!
The more sad thing about this is Amtrak had a very similar derailment (high speed around a curve and loss of situational awareness with no positive train control) two years prior in Philly, and the MTA had a similar derailment in Spuyten Duyvil two years before Philly.
Amtrak had 4 years to learn that they needed PTC completed on their lines (especially those with speed restrictions) and yet they did not learn and more people died.
It's been extremely hard to get freight railroads on board with PTC, as well. Congress mandated it many years ago, but the railroads hate spending money and see it as more of a passenger rail thing, not relevant to their operations. So they've repeatedly lobbied for extensions to the deadline and always gotten them.
@@MrBirdnoseThe problem is that congress mandated it everywhere, not just passenger rail routes, probably without even realizing it. And it isn't really all that relevant to freight operations. There's also the US system not quite being ready for rollout, and bureaucratic problems such as the sudden need for 19,000 first nations inspections before building the transmitters, and the need for allocation of part of the radio spectrum for the system. And a pandemic. The original deadline was impossible anyway with those problems. If it was limited to passenger routes and the government paid for it, there wouldn't be nearly the objections. Although it would only be getting completed about now anyway.
Besides, what's the point of it cost/benefit wise on a small railroad that has secondary (freight) lines that have only good for 15 mph (and never really was good for more when first built a century ago) and sees 4 trains a week? (There's actually a lot of them.) But they're stuck installing it anyway, and footing the bill. And all trains in the US have 2 people in the cab up front unlike much of the rest of the world, which has been the safeguard for quite some time. (And is probably good enough for freight operations anyway.)
@@braselc1914 Small railroads were never going to have to implement it -- it was only mandated for Class I railroads. And the mandate was passed in 2008, so it's not like they didn't have plenty of time to comply, even before the pandemic.
But US railroads hate passenger service and will do anything in their power to strangle it, even at the cost of endangering their own employees.
@@MrBirdnose This is going to be something incredibly unusual for youtube comment sections, so here goes: I looked it up, you were right, I was wrong. Also, much to my surprise it turns out it's actually been implemented already since December 2020. This accident occurred before that though.
Always a pleasure to see your videos John!
Glad you like them!
Nice to see the NTSB not resort to throwing the engineer/driver under the bus and highlight the real underlying causes.
Usually they highlight the training problems on the causes of these accidents and usually try and prod the governing body of that transport system to upgrade rules and regulations for the various companies that they govern. It doesn’t always work as a lot of the governing bodies like the FRA for instance are slow to adopt changes because of their sometimes “buddy buddy” nature with some of the companies. Especially in the case of the airlines and the FAA. They usually do very thorough investigations in high profile cases.
@@Chellz801 Thanks for the reply. Considering my comment again with more time for thought - I think I was very surprised that some agency was not actually subject to regulatory capture and cronyism.
On reflection, it's downright depressing that I go through life expecting nothing but corruption in everything. But I do. And it's rare that I find things to be otherwise. Wish it weren't so :(
I was living in Tacoma when this happened, this is why you should never have a crew that's completely green (in terms of both equipment usage and familiarity of the subdivision) and never rush to open a new railroad line before it's ready for revenue service.
I remember the morning this happened!
I was working a shift at McDonald's back in my senior year of high school and we had an awfully packed lobby that day but the mood was strange and quiet. People were quiet but still talkative and people loitered around like they were waiting for a flight or something. Everyone was being friendly but had this concerned air about them. I was working front counter at the time and heard from a customer that the new Amtrak line we had all heard commercials on the radio for the past like 3 months or so had derailed, cutting off I-5 and leaving people in a strange spot, whether they were leaving a night shift to go home, or if they were trying to get over to work to start their days!..
About 2 years later I worked with a guy who worked on catering for trains and told me about his buddy who was running the route that day. Told me they were barely trained on that route before they ran it. Always wished I could know more details about it which is why seeing this video was a real trip! Thanks for covering this!
Love from one of the many hoods of WA!
I feel sorry for the engineer who was doomed from the start. I hope the train line company used this incident to overhaul their entire operations and head towards safety.
Hope your feeling better today, John....take care of yourself and know we'll be here for ya!
nice work dude. always enjoy your videos ☺
I appreciate it!
Hope you continue to improve John. Prayers sent for speedy recovery.
Hope you're doing better brother! Went through it a couple of months ago and have only recently began to feel 100%. Great work carrying on despite the illness. This was a very strange case indeed. Thanks for covering it!
New driver, new conductor, new locomotive, new safety system, new line, new service. What could possibly go wrong?
I remember the inauguration of this new rail line being promoted [in advance] as an example of a 'high speed rail' success story in the Pacific Corridor, with new rails and equipment pushing to record speed on the line, "except for one 30 MPH curve." I thought to myself, high speed rail does not have 30 MPH curves. When this accident happened a few days later, I was reminded of the sledding scene in Christmas Vacation... "Bingo!"
Thanks for this informative follow-up.
I don't know how big UK speed boards are, but the speed signs on this line (which look to be BNSF-standard) are likely 12x24 inches. This is kind of ridiculous when you consider roadway speed limit signs in the US are usually at least 24x30 in. and can get _much_ bigger if the situation warrants
UK lineside boards are small but they use various signalling systems for permanent speed restrictions that at a minimum sound alerts in the cab that has to be acknowledged. In practice all permanent speed restrictions have TPWS (Track Protection Warning Systems) fitted at an appropriate point so anyone going faster will have the brakes applied by it.
I think the idea is engineers know where the speed restrictions are and where to look for them. (With the weight of a train, if you're not slowing down before you come to the actual restriction it's too late anyway.)
hope you're fully recovered now. And I adore these disaster documentaries. You're writing is full of education and your commentary is very human. Thanks for the excellent entertainment.
Hope you're feeling better by the time this comes out John! Great work as always.
Another great video, John; I sincerely hope you're feeling better.
Washington has had a few deadly rail accidents in the past: the avalanche in the Cascade Mountains, and the 4th of July Tacoma streetcar derailment. I think the death toll was in the dozens for both.
Just for comparison: Here in Switzerland we traindrivers need to do a new Line 4 times in the cab in each direction before we are allowed to drive there. With the possibility to review Videos, wich exist of every route, if we want additional training.
Woo-hoo! Just in time for my lunch break! Your videos are always something to look forward to. They always cover something I had not heard about or details I didn't know about in something I had heard about
This is a great analysis of this relatively recent accident that I haven't heard reported locally. I hope you feel better!
Wow! The inaugural trip and the train crashes... What a poorly setup route.
The titanic of Trains!
The aftermath was horrifying to see. WADOT was crazy fast in repairing the damage done though.
Horrifying? I think you mean it was AWESOME.
@@Mario87456 No Mario, it wasn't awesome.
Hope you’re feeling better now, John. Thanks for another great video!
Sorry to hear you've been ill. Hope you feel better. I've been watching your vids over the past year and it's been oddly comforting to know that my little corner of the world isn't the thing in chaos. LOL Take care of yourself and be well.
Again, this disaster was a culmination of many errors including signs that can't be read, lack of good training, and two men who hear an alarm and ignore it. Fail, fail, fail. Amtrak shouldn't be allowed to run trains, they have obviously shown many times they don't know how. Thanks John, great job as always. Hope you and your entire family are bright and well now.
As far as I can tell, they weren't familiar enough with the engine to know what the alarm was.
Great video as usual!! Every time I see you do a rail disaster I always think you should do a video on the lac Mégantic Québec rail disaster. The entire town went up in flames.
Yes! I just mentioned Lac Meganitc in another comment. Usually Canadian rail services have much higher safety standards than Amtrak, at least from what I've seen historically, but that was a multi-sided screw-up of tragically epic proportions. Everything that could have gone wrong, did.
Get well soon John. And thank you for your informative work, it's been a pleasure to watch.
I'm so glad you brought up the issue of the engineer taking no action when he realized the problem. For gods sake do SOMETHING! ANYTHING!
I don't know what the standard is for train engineers but I think the personal responsibility level should at least be on par with airline pilots and ocean-liner captains. You hear it over and over again when a plane crashes about how the pilots struggle til the very end to save thier plane and passengers. As a Seattle resident, I was shocked when it happened but not surprised that it happened.
The engineer sued Amtrak for millions...and won.
Hope you're feeling better now! Outro track is another banger. I loved listening to this in its full length.
Thanks for listening
always love a train vid. hope you're feeling better!
Thank you very much!
Another great video!!! Thank you, John, and hope you are well!!! Cheers from Illinois.
Thank you for this John! Hope you are doing better now. Much respect from Washington state.
Someone I knew was on the train when this happened. He was injured but ok and this is how I learned he was a rail fan.
Also, one of my safety professors worked on the investigation for this. Great to see this
2 Miles to go from 80 to 30 with increased cargo, and just a sign?! They used to have signal stations for a reason
That's insane!
Passenger trains are far lighter than freight trains, so the 2 miles was a safe distance IF the engineer started braking at the proper point. But the speed restriction sign did not conform to signage standards, the lighting washing out the control point sign text, and a lack of proper training to give the engineer the situational awareness via route and locomotive training doomed the engineer to do what he did. If anything, he was the last link in the chain of causation, not the first.
@@markh.6687 they added cars.
@@immaleaf4964 That wouldn't matter in this case; the weight increase would be in no way comparable to a freight train, and whatever the speed was it was far, far higher than the laws of physics allowed in any event. Freights were also limited to the same speed on the speed limit sign.
@@markh.6687 Cargo doesn't mean freight.
They added extra weight, regardless of what it was. Maybe I didn't use the right word, but it was still additional weight that the brakes would have had to act against
As always, great informative video John! Hope you've recovered well.
Hi John, I hope your felling better! Thanks for making the video even though you weren’t felling well, great video as always.
As a Washington resident who lived in the state at the time, how did I miss hearing about this?
@@samueldavila2156 I was partially wondering if it was one of two things. I lived in Eastern WA so it just remained as local news. And/or I believe I was in AZ when that happened for Christmas
I remember news reports. I had a friend living in Pullyalup (sp) at the time. She shared the reports.
Not sure how I missed this? Been here since 2011. I loved at the beginning of the video “poo-jit” sound. John is the bestest!
@@carlymizzou hearing anyone try to pronounce Washington state names is always entertaining. Particularly British. A reddit TH-camr I watched tried to pronounce Snoqualmie. He struggled so hard.
This was about as local as it gets to me. I drive through there all the time and have taken the train across that same stretch of track a few times. My roommate got stuck in that traffic jam that happened because of this too. It's cool to see you covering this, and you did a pretty good job with the more difficult to pronounce PNW names, better than some other non-locals.
I never miss your videos. Thank you for the research and information.
Hope you are feeling better. Really enjoy listening to your productions
I hope you'll recover fully and soon !
take care, and free yourself to slow on videos !
Thank you! I'm all good now, I usually record scripts a few weeks ahead of time
@@PlainlyDifficult Glad to hear it! Covid's no fun at all.
I still don't know why train designers don't design instrument boards better, like for a toddler, because there's so much noise and weather conditions. "Wow, it's getting foggy cuz PACIFIC OCEAN, gotta hit the big honking bright red button now"
Please get better soon John! Another awesome and very informative video. Thank-you.
I was in the army at Ft Lewis right up the street from this. Crazy stuff.
You suffering John? Get Well! Good on you soldiering on!
Thank you but I'm all ok now, I usually record the scripts a few weeks before the video goes out
Ah I commented before the end, glad to hear it!
I was living in the Tacoma area when this happened. Nice to actually finally find out why.
Fantastic video as always.
I remember this terrible day. Thanks for posting, John.
It’s always good content when people outside the PNW try to pronounce Native places
I feel your pain, I have the same when people try to pronounce English town names!
@@PlainlyDifficult we perhaps ought to warn people "shire" is pronounced "sheer" when attached to something else eg "Nottinghamshire".
@@nerdygoth6905 yes that’s very helpful, I’m American and I had no idea
@@nerdygoth6905 Just as an historical note the reason "shire" is pronounced as "sheer" in Britain is that it's the Old English pronounciation of shire.
@@PlainlyDifficult Two of my all time favorite English place names that even Brits very rarely get correct is Stiffkey and Happisburgh, both in Norfolk.
I remember this when it happen. I think I almost went that way to go to Oregon to visit a relative but somethings came up and didn't go. It was terrible when it happened and I believe it could of been avoided.
Not in the hospital anymore but still looking forward to these every time ❤
Edit: Hope you’re recovery goes well. Feel better!
Thank you John, I enjoy your all's content I think that your content is well researched and well presented Sir, and I hope that you get better ASAP or already feeling better Sir. Thank you again for your thoughtful videos
isn't that the same tacoma where that bridge collapsed? maybe they shoudn't be in charge of infrastructure?
Yes it is!
What do you think of a video about the Hindenburg disaster?
Thank you for this one, I really hope you feel better now. I remember how bad it was. Heck.
I absolutely love these kind of videos about the train's. Thanks so much for sharing!!!
Hope you are feeling better! Great video! Thank you!
Fastest I've ever clicked on a Plainly Difficult video. Love the content!
Thank you