A friend of mine was in the Amtrak train wreck

[DFW]

I just heard from him. He's alive, but not unscathed. He got some bruised ribs and some minor other injuries. He considers himself lucky. A woman a few feet away from him was completely crushed.

Four Americans died at Benghazi. Eight Americans died in the Amtrak wreck.The Republicans in Congress are willing to spend months and tens of millions of OUR dollars pursuing the wraith of Benghazi, but won't spend a dime to bring our rail infrastructure up to standards that the Europeans and East Asians would have considered passé 20 years ago. Some people have their priorities ever so slightly fucked up.

We all know why. Amtrak hasn't declared for the Democratic nomination for President. This is not the best excuse for being perfectly willing for this to happen again next week.

[Coventina]

1. So glad your friend is OK!

But he must be pretty emotionally traumatized.

Please send him DU's

[DFW]

3. I already sent him a message

But thanks for the sentiment. He said the emergency teams that responded were great, which is nice to hear.

[jen63]

2. I feel you.

The USNA Midshipman who died is my son's classmate. The shock still hasn't worn off for any of us. Commissioning is next weekend. He was taking a few days of leave and was on his way home to NY to see his family before he had to go back to the Yard. His mom had his favorite dinner waiting for him when they got the news.

I'm glad your friend is okay.

[DFW]

5. That's horrible.

My friend is shaken up, but alive, and he was right next to at least one victim who no longer enjoys that status.

My hart goes out to the family of your son's classmate.

[jen63]

10. Your friend is very fortunate.

Justin was a great kid.

[pacalo]

20. That's heartbreaking.

Just horrible what the mother & dad must be feeling.

[jen63]

23. Terribly heartbreaking.

He was an only child. I cannot even begin to imagine how they feel.

[pacalo]

24. Makes you want to keep hugging your son, doesn't it.

[jen63]

27. Sure does!

I was horrified when he brought up the military, but better to have more young people like he and Justin, than the kids of wingnuts! The train crash proves that you just never know when your number is going to come up.

[pacalo]

28. ITA!

[malaise]

55. Too sad

[jen63]

56. Such a shock. n/t

[democrank]

33. I`m so sorry to hear about your son`s USNA classmate, jen63.

It`s heartbreaking. May he rest in peace.

[jen63]

36. Thank you democrank. n/t

[steve2470]

45. very sorry to hear about your son's classmate

[jen63]

47. Thank you steve2470.

[emsimon33]

58. My heart broke when I heard of the young midshipman

What a tragic loss--all of them--but such a fine young man sacrificed to the pettiness of the Republican congress.

[jen63]

62. A future millennial

leader we couldn't afford to lose. Not to say everyone killed isn't important. I'm just close to this one. Tragic.

[kwassa]

60. The woman sitting next to the midshipman on the train ...

I spoke to a man this evening at work. His brother's fiancee was on the train, sitting next the midshipman.

His description of her description:

The train car flipped on it's side, and it was like a tornado hit the train. All the windows blew out, she was inundated with dirt and flying debris, and ended up with broken ribs up on the luggage wrack. She was able to walk away, though, while he was killed.

edit to add:

This guy told me that the fiancee was extensively interviewed by the New York Times, and she was:

Halfway down the third car, Seyward Darby, who often took the 7:10 from Washington when working there, was leaning into a window, editing an article on her laptop and not paying much attention to where the train was.

Suddenly it began to feel as if it was going too fast into a curve, “like when you’re riding a bike on a curve, or a go-cart, and you get pulled really hard to the outside.”

The train began jolting violently. People screamed. Luggage and laptops and bodies were flying everywhere. The car rolled several times, then skidded to a halt on its side.

“I felt like I was on a roller coaster,” said Ms. Darby, 29, an editor at Foreign Policy magazine. “I remember thinking, I need to brace myself as hard as I can.” She had knee surgery several months ago, and her first thought was, “I really hope my knee is O.K.” Then, “I really hope I’m not dying.”

None of the passengers in the car could figure out how to work the emergency exit, so they decided to push out the windows, which were now on the ceiling, using the dangling seats to hoist themselves up. The police had also cut holes in the side of train cars, and cut down a chain-link fence to get to the train.

Dazed, passengers walked what many recalled as the length of two football fields, where they came to a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood where residents were coming out of a bodega, offering cases of water, and phones for passengers who had lost theirs to call their loved ones.

In the dark outside, Ms. Darby’s instinct was to get away from the train. She walked for about 40 yards, then saw a teenager clutching her hands, with bones poking out. She put an arm around her, then, as she felt her own shock, someone else arrived to put an arm around her and warm her with a sweatshirt. They saw police helicopters, and then officers rushing.

“People were just hugging each other, pure strangers,” Ms. Darby said. “If you saw someone who just needed human contact, people were being so kind to each other.”

She asked if anyone had died. An officer told her it sounded as if people were getting out fine. “I knew he was lying,” Ms. Darby said. She wondered about the polite naval midshipman who had sat next to her, but whom she had not seen outside the train.

“Having felt the sensation of being in that train as it was hurtling,” she said Wednesday, “there’s no way everyone was going to walk away from it.”

A police officer drove Ms. Darby, who had hurt her back, and an injured teenager to Temple University Hospital. A nurse there — Ms. Darby recalls her name as Angel — was using her own phone to field calls and texts from family members of the patients.

Ms. Darby left the hospital around 3:30 a.m., and headed to 30th Street Station, where she gave a statement to a police officer. There, she saw her reflection in a bathroom mirror, and realized she was covered in dirt.

The head of security then walked her to the holding area where families were waiting.

“I saw my fiancé,” Ms. Darby said. “I was in shock, shaking. He couldn’t tell if it was me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us/amtrak-train-crash-passengers-recall-routine-ride-then-chaos.html

[jen63]

61. Wow, thank you.

I'm glad she's okay. I just think about him being all alone. He was in full uniform and identified that way.

[myrna minx]

77. My heart goes out to you, your family and the family

Of that poor soul.

[jen63]

80. Thank you myrna minx. n/t

[d_legendary1]

79. Tragic

Thoughts and prayers to your son's classmate's family.

[jen63]

81. Thanks d_legendary1. n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Oh my dear DFW, I am relieved to hear that he's relatively OK. May he soon completely recover...

And what the Republicans are doing is nothing short of criminal. Just another day for them. Fucking bastards, all of them.

[DFW]

6. As always, dear Peggy

You are far more charitable to them than I ever would be!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. You know I am just saying the tiniest bit that I feel! There ARE rules, ya know!

[DFW]

12. In the immortal words of Abner Yokum

Ah figgered.......

[cui bono]

7. Not only that, the day after the Cons voted to cut funding for Amtrak

or something. I just heard a snippet on the Thom Hartmann show this morning.

Sorry about your friend, glad he's okay.

[DFW]

9. They did exactly that

It seems some of our Congressional delegations think that money is better spent on Benghazi and repealing the ACA for the 99th time.

What we have here is a failure to have their heads screwed on straight.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Give him hugs

as to the GOP and the rest of the pols... I do not know what it will take for them to stop playing politics,

[DFW]

16. I figure one of two things

Last edited Thu May 14, 2015, 05:32 PM - Edit history (1)

Either the Kochs divide their net worth with them evenly, or

A paino falls on each of them from ten stories.

Barring either event, I don't think they are inclined to change their destructive ways any time soon.

[steve2470]

13. I'm so glad your friend survived!

All the best to you and your family.

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Fucking tragic.

In every aspect.

Glad to hear your friend is OK.

Heartfelt condolences to those who lost their lives.

[daleanime]

15. Glad he's doing OK....

hope it doesn't haunt him for long.

It's disgusting that this is stuff that could be easy fixed, if they wanted to. More important to them to let billionaires kept their stealings in the family.

[DFW]

17. Actually, he was a minor member of the Obama administration until last year

The U.S. Pension Guaranty Corp. to be specific.

He knows what we as a country are up against in getting this problem fixed.

[spanone]

18. k&r...

i heard a puke congressidiot say this is a good reason to privatize amtrak...that's all they think about

privatization and stopping abortions....nothing else...well, benghazi too

[DFW]

19. And invading Iran, when they get around to it

Although I think they'll stop short of that. Republicans don't like to invade countries they know will shoot back (Iraq was a major miscalculation).

[Gore1FL]

30. If privatizing Amtrak was going to work

It makes me wonder why established private railroads (besides ATSF) so desperately wanted to do away with the services.

[appalachiablue]

40. +1

[AtheistCrusader]

65. This is how they do it. Starve it to the point of collapse and then

Auction off the carcass to their friends.

[pacalo]

21. I share your feelings about the need for modernizing our railways.

I'm glad your friend made it, DFW.

[kentuck]

22. kick

Excellent analysis!

They actually had the nerve to cut funding for Amtrak the day after this horrific crash. Un-fukkin-believ-able!

[progressoid]

25. This is so infuriating.

And RWers will point to this accident as evidence that we should get rid of "socialized" rail.

[Helen Borg]

26. And many more than 8 people died in car crashes...

[Pharaoh]

29. Because the oil company's

Last edited Thu May 14, 2015, 08:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Don't want high speed rail. They would prefer we all drove hummers

[appalachiablue]

41. +1

[democrank]

31. So glad your friend made it, DFW.

Such a fine line between life and death sometimes.

[shenmue]

32. Oh no

Sending hugs.

[philosslayer]

34. Sorry, don't mean to be cruel..but...

The crash had nothing to do with the rail infrastructure. It had to do with an engineer driving a train too fast.

And, see the below link. It happens in Europe also. This one killed 79 people two years ago. Same reason as what happened in Philadelphia.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/spain-train-crash-driver-garzon-tape-revealed

[dhol82]

38. Thought I heard that there was some fancy tech stuff

that would have automatically slowed down the train without the engineer. It is available, but not for our cash strapped rail system.

The reports about the driver are that he remembers nothing about the crash. Curious.

[DFW]

69. I read that later

Maybe it's like my brother in law. He suddenly started having epileptic fits in his early forties. Eventually they were traced to a brain tumor that was operated on and deemed benign. Soon after that, though, it came back with a vengeance, this time as a stage 4 glioblastoma, an always-fatal brain cancer.

Even so, many modern train systems have computerized systems, and I'm sure they have built-in detectors that do not permit excessive speeds on curved stretches. Otherwise, with the dense network of high-speed railways here in Europe, there would be dozens of fatal accidents here every year. There hasn't been a drastic failure on the ICE system here in Germany for over 15 years.

[appalachiablue]

39. You might want to consider this information. Similar problems exist in every industry

between labor and mgmt., esp. in the last 30 years. For example, airline management cuts costs by using pilots who are paid little, with few benefits and who work long hours, and endure cut backs and labor strife. Many function with no 2nd pilot b/c it would cost too much for the safety of people over profit, rather than stupendous salaries for corporate execs.

Same situation in retail, healthcare, medicine, privatized for profit prisons, charter schools and more. Let's wait and see if this horrible accident was entirely the Engineer's fault and if so why, and what were the conditions.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141093296

[jen63]

42. Yep,

at this point everything is speculation but the speed. I'd be interested in maintenance records. Could the brakes have failed, etc.?

[appalachiablue]

53. Hopefully the brake info. will be in the black box feature or other records and brought out

cleanly in the investigation. What a tragedy-

[jen63]

54. Yeah, I'm kind of

ignorant about that stuff. I didn't know if that info. would be there or not. If the brakes were actually applied or not.

[appalachiablue]

59. This morning I heard a couple of the TV Lawyers on CNN and a box was mentioned.

One lawyer, bright black guy was pretty good about holding on for the data to come in, while another was already talking about trying the engineer for a crime (speeding?). The engineer turned in his cellph. and gave a sample for drug testing to investigators already. A relative worked for CSX (C&O), maybe I'll ask although he was an environmental analyst for waterways, land impact, etc. before all heck broke loose with Raygun.

[jen63]

64. I knew they had found a

black box. The speed at crash was 106 or something close to that. Upthread, Kwassa linked to a Times article that said a passenger reported that the speed didn't start to increase until shortly before the curve and crash. I just wonder about those brakes.

"All heck broke loose with Raygun," is the understatement of a century! Frickin evil idiot.

[Hekate]

52. You should have heard Rachel Maddow's rant on this last night. Train accidents in the US....

....that we now take for granted are unheard of in the rest of the developed world, where trains go 100 mph routinely, and up to 200 mph. Our trains chug along at an average of 68 mph.

File our railroad accidents under : Infrastructure, Money not spent on.

[appalachiablue]

67. FRANCE'S TGV. The train's hub is Paris and TGV connects throughout France and Europe.

Average speed 200 mph; holds world speed record of 350 mph. Took it from Paris SW to Bordeaux in summer. Smooth, fast, modern with views of sunflower fields out the windows. When I lived in England the first red poppy flowers I saw were in fields seen out the train windows.





INDIA has a range of rail transportation including large trains with SLUG riders (on top), and also private and luxury rail lines for tourists, affluent locals and others.

Indian American friends who travel frequently to the UK and Scandinavia comment on how modern the infrastructure is- airports, subways and trains in Belgium, Norway and Sweden, compared to the US.





Indian Luxury Train Line.

[kwassa]

76. I've ridden the TGV. Bern to Paris.

[Dem2]

57. NTSB said PTC would have prevented this accident.

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/how-ptc-technology-could-have-prevented-amtrak-train-crash-445051459726

The technology takes money to implement. This IS part of the infrastructure.

[underpants]

35. How people survived that I have no idea.

Glad to hear he is okay.

[dhol82]

37. DFW

Would you mind if I used your righteous rant to send to my FB friends?

It makes a good point.

[DFW]

70. Go right ahead. n/t

[dhol82]

74. Thanks.

[calimary]

43. Very glad you're friend is okay. MAN, though, I bet he's still traumatized.

Especially when you see another nearby person was not so lucky. That's got to be pretty doggone shattering. And yeah, you won't hear peep out of those cheapskate putzes about this. All they want to do about it is to hope it just goes away. Heaven forbid they spend any money to outfit passenger trains with those automatic braking systems. Totally reaganesque. Pennywise, and pound EXTREMELY, even OBSCENELY foolish.

Why ANYBODY paid any attention to him, or took him seriously, is beyond me. But he did photograph well... And he made all those All-American fairy stories sound soooooooooooo nice.

[appalachiablue]

44. So glad your young friend is ok, and thanks for sharing the story and ugly reality of our

messed up GOP legislators. They really care little about human life, the earth or much except money in these times. When I saw news of the accident I recalled another terrible tragedy in the late 90s. Two trains on different lines outside DC in MD collided, at night in the dark. It was a fairly rural area with little professional rescue available from what I remember.

One train was mainly carrying young college students who were returning from community service around Harper's Ferry WV. According to reports, due to power outage all the floor lights in the passenger cars went out. In darkness and panic people tried their best to exit doors that would not open, and to desperately open older windows that were not updated for that purpose. It made me so sad; and now I've added to what you've just experienced. Sorry, loss of life esp. preventable I find very disturbing.

[malaise]

46. I can't begin to process

what families and friends are going through. I won't even contemplate what those passengers experienced - at least a crashing aircraft kills you quickly.

[Dont call me Shirley]

48. The dead and injured...

The gop are Slumlords. Don't invest in repair, then sell at a high when gentrification comes.

[appalachiablue]

50. +1

[Omaha Steve]

49. Little miracles happen K&R!

[corkhead]

51. Sadly, it's exactly what makes so many people check out of politics altogether

[marym625]

63. I'm glad your friend is OK

I remember the 1972 IC crash. I can't remember which train my uncle was on but he, along with my grandfather, two uncles and a couple cousins all worked for the IC.

My uncle that was on the train helped carry body parts away from the wreck, as did others on the train. They helped pull injured people to safety and bodies away from the wreckage.

45 people died. 332 people were injured. And as far as I know, the only change that happened to prevent it from happening again, was the back of the cars were painted orange

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Chicago_commuter_rail_crash

A friend's father was the surgeon climbing into the smashed car to help the victims

[pansypoo53219]

66. dust motes & logs. perspective is a good thing.

[floriduck]

68. And Meagan Kelly had the balls to

Get all panty-watted because she didn't like the accident being used for political fodder. Well fuck that birch. She and her robots have done that for years, the two-faced witch. Not one of their daytime shows even covered the accident. I am sure Roger Ailes didn't want to miss off his oil buddies, that fuckhead.

[DFW]

71. I'm sure she's totally against tragedies shamelessly being exploited for purely political purposes

Like the attack at Benghazi, for example.........

[nikto]

72. Just tell the GOP ...

That Hillary caused the Amtrack crash.

That'll get their attention.

[DFW]

78. Oh, they'll probably come to that conclusion all on their own

And if they don't, Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly will do it for them.

[nikto]

82. A FAUX-NooZ 3-Hour Special

[secondwind]

73. So happy your friend is relatively okay... this thread is too sad to read. I routinely rode on the

Northeast Corridor train from Boston to Albany and back, visiting my only child. My husband and I live in FL now, adding two more Democrats to St. John's County.

I cannot imagine what the parents of the midshipman are going through.

[dogcatdog]

75. Missing the point

Billionaires do not need infrastructure upgrades, or a host of other programs that help the less fortunate. All they want is no TAXES. No taxes means not upgrades. Those are the republican marching orders.