Amtrak train crashes in Philadelphia, wreckage 'pretty bad'
Source: KWWL.com and AP
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - An Amtrak train headed to New York City crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and several people appeared to be injured.
Train 188, a Northeast Regional, had left Washington, D.C., earlier Tuesday. The front of the train was going into a turn when it shook.
An Associated Press employee, Paul Cheung, was on the train and said it appeared it went off the tracks. He said he was fortunate to be at the back of the train and the front of it "looks pretty bad."
Police swarming the Port Richmond area where the crash occurred are telling people to get back.
Former Congressman Patrick Murphy was on the train and said he has been helping people. He tweeted photos of firefighters helping people in the wreckage.
</snip>
Read more: http://www.kwwl.com/story/29048453/amtrak-train-from-washington-crashes-in-philadelphia
Seeing aerial shots of the scene on MSNBC and CNN - it looks pretty bad...
= new reply since forum marked as read
...but we should wait for the details in order to fully examine the causes of the wreck.
Something horrifically tragic like this happens, and it's in the headlines for a few days or weeks, and the talk is all about our crumbling/outmoded infrastructure and how we immediately need to address it. But then the headlines fade and we move on to other concerns, and the danger out there is eventually forgotten.
In my neck of the woods, the Schoharie Bridge collapsed, cars fell into the swollen spring waters and ten people were killed. Two of them were distant relatives of mine, a mother and daughter on their way to another daughter's baby shower. And three men in another car actually worked with my father, coworkers on their way home from a company sponsored bowling tournament.
But that was in 1987 and the bridge has been replaced, but how many more bridges/overpasses/outmoded structures like that are out there? Meanwhile, kids have grown up without moms and dads, but most people won't think about it until it happens again.
And that there was still mass confusion about who was still missing, who had been taken to hospitals and people trying to locate loved ones... 
...as of a few minutes ago
and I-95. This is just awful.
There's a live stream here - http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Amtrak-Derailment-Philadelphia--303536331.html
The whole area is going to be crazy the rest of the week.
Rachel just took over from Lawrence.
I've come to the conclusion that infrastructure will NEVER be a priority in this country.
Am trying to figure out how that happened unless one car hit it and it pulled the wires down bringing the support down on another car.
I know some parts of the Amtrak rails are electric and others are diesel (and they share with our Regional Rail).
The "Frankford Junction Train Wreck"
http://www3.gendisasters.com/pennsylvania/4193/philadelphia,-pa-congressional-limited-train-wrecks,-sep-1943
I hope those tanker cars are empty!
This is just insane -
Even got the bike cops out there -
(sorry - it was after 2 am and had to go to bed ).
I think the mayor indicated that the fire department called for a "4-alarm" (mayor said a total of "33 apparatuses"
, so no, nowhere near "most" resources over there. A former co-worker's husband used to work for the fire department and I think she said there are usually "8 pieces of equipment" per alarm (including engines, squirts, ladder trucks, EMT). For example, not that far from there, there was an 8-alarm "tire fire" under I95 about 20 years ago that had 32 engines alone on the scene (and there would also be ladder trucks, squirt trucks, water cannon trucks, and medic units, etc.). I think there is one engine per station and the city has 61 fire stations, so this would have been about 1/2 that tire fire situation. Did not hear even the usual police car whoop whooping it down the street.
I'm about 7 miles from there, on the opposite side of the city.
Edit to add a map - I am in NW Philly and this map shows the river area (the section that says "Kensington", "Bridesburg", etc, whre Port Richmond is)-
And this one wrapped around a pole and its wheels are up in the air -
CNN has someone saying there's an awful lot of damage that couldn't just be from the derailment.
then that would have done it in.
There was some surveillance video shown on CNN overnight from a nearby warehouse and you could see the very bottom of the train running by the site of the camera at pretty good clip before there was a pause when the train was out of the visual, and then there is a series of bright flashes as the train apparently came off the rails (there were multiple flashes and even a couple sparks/debris evident on the tape).
and yes - definitely the catenary lines... The views were zoomed looking towards an area where apparently you can see one of the train cars overturn, slam the ground, and slide a bit (with the flashes on the other side of it).
One of the passengers (who has been out there giving interviews overnight and today) mentioned something a little different this latest time I heard him - he said that in his car, they felt a strong "bump", and then a 2nd "bump", and then after the 3rd "bump", their car started leaning as the train had started to derail.
And I spent 6 primary school years riding those rails back and forth to school every morning - 2 years going to the end of the line northbound and 4 years going to the end of the line southbound (on "Penn Central" back then right when they were going bankrupt). I could literally tell you where we were based on the "feel" and sounds the train made on the tracks. The engineers would let us kids ride in the cabin with them and they taught us all their little hand signals. High school ended up being 2 SEPTA buses to and from.
Commuting to work was 3 more years on those rails and then I had had enough! 
(I am a she).
Am hoping this may be a catalyst for some funding to get the rail infrastructure upgraded for Amtrak.... But then other events often overtake the focus on this type of need.
At least PA was finally able to get some dedicated funding for our regional transit system (SEPTA) that also shares rails with Amtrak and Conrail/CSX, so the light and heavy rail portions can get substandard or crumbling train bridges and other infrastructure repaired.
The speed limit at that spot is 50 mph. IMHO, they probably shouldn't go more than 35 mph.