Train crash toll rises to 15

Press, 7 January 1987, Page 8

Train crash toll rises to 15

NZPA-AP Chase, Maryland Workers pulled a fifteenth body from the wreckage of a passenger train yesterday, as officials investigating Amtrak’s worst accident said the diesel engines rammed by the train probably pulled on to the track less than a second before the crash. Officials expressed confidence that they had recovered the last of the victims of Monday’s crash, although they called in bloodhounds to search the last 15 feet of the final, heavily damaged car, the dining car. “There is no sign of life left in the cars,” said the Baltimore County Police spokesman, Robert Oatman.

The Amtrak train was travelling north at about 160km/h when it slammed into three Conrail diesel engines that were also heading north and that should have re-

mained on a siding, officials said. More than 170 people were injured.

Authorities believed the freight train moved out from the siding a split second before the arrival of the passenger train, said the Federal Railroad Administration head, John Riley, in a television interview. “What I mean is the distance in time between the Conrail train moving on to the tracks and the point of impact was perhaps a second or less,” said Mr Riley. “Based on observations, officials believe that the Amtrak engineer, who was killed, had no time to react, and we’ll be able to confirm that with certainty as we examine the tapes.

“We know the Amtrak train had the right of way,” said Mr Riley. "We know the Conrail train should have been signalled to remain on the siding and stay there,” he said.