For those of you wondering what this Positive Train Control is and how it could have helped prevent this accident:
Positive Train Control, PTC, will force a train to slow down if it the engineer fails to slow it down when entering a section of track that requires a reduced speed. It will also force a train to stop if the train passes a stop signal. It's a combination of equipment installed in trains themselves, and along the tracks which slow down or stop trains in the event of human error. Although the concept seems like a no-brainer the railroads have had to be dragged into deploying PTC, kicking and screaming. It's expensive and disruptive to operations to deploy.
in following this story I find it odd that the inability to get a straight answer as to the status of PTC in the region and the trains is a striking. It's not like it is a mystery to Amtrak or something. But they are being a little cagey in speaking plainly about this.
Yesterday morning, the experts were saying they doubted that the train was speeding because of PTC. Then I heard that the track was outfitted with PTC but the train wasn't. Then I read that Amtrack trains use PTC but it is not clear if the track in question had PTC implemented here. I smell a bit of a blame game and a cover-up going on here due to a missed deadline or a promise to have PTC deployed by the time this line opened not being kept.
From WaPo:
NTSB investigators will also be assessing what crash-avoidance technology existed on the tracks or on the train and whether that technology functioned properly.
Though Amtrak trains are equipped with it, the railroad said the train was not using positive train control, a system that would have slowed it as it entered the curve.
And from NYTimes:
Federal law requires railroads, by the end of 2018, to have positive train control, which automatically slows trains if they are exceeding speed limits or approaching dangerous conditions. In its latest progress report to the railroad administration, Amtrak said it had installed positive train control on all 603 miles of track on the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston.
The Washington State Department of Transportation has said that the entire Cascades route will have the system by mid-2018, but it was not clear whether it was in operation on Monday on any part of the line.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/us/amtrak-derailment-washington.html
The reason it is "unclear" is that "they" would like this accident to drop off the front-page of the news before getting into the saga of whose fault it is that this brand new service was deployed without PTC when the federal deadline is looming so near for the entire industry.
[The "they" I am talking about is Amtrak, who actually runs the trains, the freight railroad that maintains and upgrades the tracks, and the state of Washington which owns the commuter service which Amtrak runs for them.]