Amtrak officials hoped to have the Auto Train running again by Monday or Tuesday, Amtrak spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said.Hospital Assn. Iron Road Healthcare (UPREHS) Fringe Benefits 2020 (PDF) RRB Reminders 2020 (PDF) Your Track to Health United Behavioral Health CARE Hospital Association.CRESCENT CITY, Fla.
The track where an Amtrak Auto Train derailed in a deadly mess of mangled cars and rails was cleared Sunday, allowing the first trains to pass through this northern Florida town since the accident, according to a wire service. The original tracks were torn out by Thursdays derailment, which killed four people and injured more than 150. The first coal train that moved through Sunday morning was on temporary rails, said Gary Sease, spokesman for CSX, the freight railroad that owns the track. The 39-foot-long sections of temporary track can hold slow-moving trains at 10 mph. The company plans to make improvements this week to allow the temporary tracks to withstand faster trains. He said an average of 28 trains a day are normally scheduled there. As the coal train passed, workers continued clearing downed trees and debris from the area with bulldozers and cranes. ![]() Its two engines and first two cars stayed on the tracks, but more than half its 40 cars went off, throwing passengers to the cars floors and against walls. Sylvia Sheldon said she and her husband, David, were sitting on a couch in the lounge car when the train derailed, and the couch fell on her. An Amtrak employee bent over so the couple, in their 70s, could climb on his back to get out through a window, she said. The Boca Raton couple had been returning to Toronto, where they live part time. They said they didnt know if theyll take the train when they return to Florida. The lead engineer told the National Transportation Safety Board that he saw a disjointed track about an hour into a trip from Sanford to Lorton, Va., and slammed on the engines brake. Seconds later, a backup engineer in the locomotive cab and a conductor two cars back felt the train hit disjointed track and switched on emergency brakes as well, NTSB board member George Black said. The NTSB hasnt said if its investigators have been able to verify if the track was misaligned. The lead engineer said the tracks were misaligned by about 10 inches, NTSB investigator Russ Quimby said. The area where the crash occurred had chronic problems with water drainage that may have contributed to the accident, Black said. A culvert runs under the tracks and water often soaks the sandy soil. Passing trains can compress the wet soil, depressing the track downward. Black said the track appeared to be moving under the weight of trains, loosening the bond between cross ties, steel tie plates and spikes. Quimby said later Saturday that the area where the culvert could have caused soft spots was hundreds of feet in front of where the accident occurred. CSX spokeswoman Jane Covington said she could not comment on the engineers account of the track being misaligned or on whether CSX maintenance crews had reported problems on the stretch of track, citing the NTSBs ongoing investigation.
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