Workers had cleared most of the wreckage blocking a major West Coast highway yesterday morning, two days after an Amtrak train derailed in Washington state while speeding onto a bridge, state transportation officials said.
But the biggest chunk remained: the 122,470kg locomotive involved in the Monday morning rush-hour crash in the city of Dupont, which killed three train passengers and sent about 100 people to hospitals.
The affected southbound stretch of Interstate 5, which runs from the Canadian border to Mexico, will remain closed indefinitely, the Washington State Department of Transportation has said.
“Even once the locomotive is removed we will need to clear debris,” the department said in a statement yesterday.
The roadway may also need repairs, the agency said.
Federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are seeking answers about crash’s cause in interviews with the train’s engineer and a trainee conductor who were in the locomotive’s cab.
NTSB members say they are focused on whether the engineer was distracted, but are timing their interviews with the crew this week around their recuperation from injuries.
Investigators are also examining the wrecked passenger cars, which have been taken to a nearby US military base.
The accident occurred during the train’s inaugural run on a new, slightly quicker route between Olympia and Tacoma, with 86 people aboard, 80 of them passengers, Amtrak said.
It was travelling at 129kph, more than twice the speed limit for the curved portion of track leading to the bridge.
NTSB investigators have found that the train’s emergency brakes were automatically activated during the derailment rather than being engaged manually by the engineer.
They also said a safety system known as positive train control, which automatically slows trains if they go too fast, was not installed on the rail line.
Congress had extended a mandatory deadline for having the system installed on all passenger railways to 2018.
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