The New York Times Magazine examines the crash of Amtrak 188, one of the worst rail disasters in U.S. history. The incident occurred in North Philadelphia and impacted many lives locally.
From 30th Street Station, the train glided northwest out of Philadelphia, tracing the arc of the freeway. Near the old Schuylkill River Bridge, it jogged right, gathering speed, bound for the New Jersey border. Had you been standing anywhere near the tracks, you would have heard Amtrak 188 before you saw it, in the hum of the rail bed and the metallic shiver of the electricity in the overhead catenary wires. And then you would have felt it, in the vibration of the earth: the combined weight of a 98-ton locomotive and seven 50-ton cars, carrying a total of 258 people, eight of them employees...
In the days and weeks and months to come, every part of his northbound journey would be dissected by law enforcement, by the news media, by the public. It would be said, correctly, that the wreck of Amtrak 188 was the worst kind of anomaly — that train travel was safer than many other forms of travel, cars included, and that Amtrak’s safety record was sterling. (This, too, is accurate: From 2000 to 2014, accidents on Amtrak routes dropped to 1.7 accidents per million passenger-miles from 4.1.) Bostian’s personal life would be picked apart, his state of mind questioned. Theories would be floated and discredited: that there was some sort of mechanical problem with the locomotive, or the track, or the signals (none of the above). That Bostian was on his phone at the time of the accident (he was not). That he was using drugs or drinking (his blood was clean).Finally, investigators would turn their focus on the section of track between North Philadelphia Station and Frankford Junction. Three miles of train travel: the distance it took for an otherwise unremarkable trip, overseen by an engineer known for his prudence, to go violently, impossibly wrong.
Original source: New York Times Magazine
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