Train's deadly first run

UPDATE: 7:45 p.m.

An Amtrak train making its first-ever run along a faster new route hurtled off an overpass south of Seattle on Monday and spilled some of its cars onto the highway below, killing at least six people, injuring more than 100 and crushing two vehicles, authorities said.

Attention quickly turned to the train's speed. A website that maps location and speed using data from Amtrak's train tracker app showed the train was going 130 km/h about a quarter of a mile from the point where it derailed, where the speed limit is significantly lower.

Seventy-seven passengers and seven crew members were aboard when the train derailed and pulled 13 cars off the tracks. Authorities said there were three confirmed deaths and more than a dozen people with critical or serious injuries.

A track chart prepared by the Washington State Department of Transportation shows the maximum speed drops from 79 mph (127 km/h) to 30 mph (48 km/h) for passenger trains just before the tracks curve to cross Interstate 5, which is where the train went off the tracks.

Kimberly Reason with Sound Transit, the Seattle-area transit agency that owns the tracks, confirmed to the AP that the speed limit at the point where the train derailed is 30 mph (48 kph). Speed signs are posted two miles before the speed zone and just before the speed zone approaching the curve, she said.

Positive train control — the technology that can slow or stop a speeding train — wasn't in use on this stretch of track, according to Amtrak President Richard Anderson.

He spoke on a conference call with reporters, said he was "deeply saddened by all that has happened today."

In a radio transmission immediately after the accident, the conductor can be heard saying the train was coming around a corner and was crossing a bridge that passed over Interstate 5 when it derailed. Dispatch audio also indicated that the engineer survived with bleeding from the head and both eyes swollen shut.

"I'm still figuring that out. We've got cars everywhere and down onto the highway," he tells the dispatcher, who asks if everyone is OK.

The train was making the inaugural run on the new route as part of a $180.7 million project designed to speed up service by removing passenger trains from a route along Puget Sound that's bogged down by curves, single-track tunnels and freight traffic.

The Amtrak Cascades service that runs from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Eugene, Oregon, is jointly owned by the Washington and Oregon transportation departments. Amtrak operates the service for the two states as a contractor and is responsible for day-to-day operations.

The new bypass was built on an existing inland rail line that runs along Interstate 5 from Tacoma to DuPont, near where Train 501 derailed. Track testing began in January and February in advance of Monday's launch and continued through at least July, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

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UPDATE: 1 p.m.

An Amtrak train making the first-ever run along a faster new route hurtled off an overpass Monday near Tacoma and spilled some of its cars onto the highway below, killing at least six people, authorities said. The death toll was expected to rise.

Seventy-eight passengers and five crew members were aboard when the train derailed at 130 km/h south of Seattle on a route that had raised safety concerns.

An official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press that preliminary signs indicate that Train 501 may have struck something before going off the track. 

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said several vehicles on Interstate 5 were struck by falling train cars and multiple motorists were injured. No fatalities of motorists were reported.

Chris Karnes was on the train, three or four cars back from the front. He said the only part of the train remaining on the tracks was the rear locomotive. Several cars were hanging over the overpass.

The possibility that the wreck was caused by something on the tracks fed into concerns voiced by local officials about the risk of high-speed trains crossing busy streets. The mayor of a town near the derailment had warned about the danger of an accident at a public meeting only two weeks ago.

The train was making the inaugural run on the new route as part of a $180.7 million project designed to speed up service by removing passenger trains from a route along Puget Sound that’s bogged down by curves, single-track tunnels and freight traffic.

The new route includes a bypass built on an existing inland rail line that runs along Interstate 5 from Tacoma to DuPont, near where Train 501 derailed. Track testing was completed in January and February in advance of Monday’s launch, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

The mayor of Lakewood, Washington, a city along the new route, predicted a deadly crash — but one involving a fast-moving train hitting a car or pedestrian at a grade-crossing. At a recent public meeting, he called on state planners to build overpass-like rail structures instead of having trains cross busy streets.

“Come back when there is that accident and try to justify not putting in those safety enhancements,” Anderson said, according to Seattle television station KOMO. “Or you can go back now and advocate for the money to do it, because this project was never needed and endangers our citizens.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said a team of investigators was on its way to the scene from Washington, D.C.

– The Associated Press

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UPDATE: 10:05 a.m.

An Amtrak train derailed south of Seattle on Monday, spilling cars onto a busy interstate. Here are some other recent Amtrak derailments:

— April 3, 2016: Two maintenance workers were struck and killed by an Amtrak train going more than 100 mph in Chester, Pennsylvania. The lead engine of the train derailed.

— March 14, 2016: An Amtrak train travelling from Los Angeles to Chicago derailed in southwest Kansas, sending five cars off the tracks and injuring at least 32 people. Investigators concluded that a cattle feed delivery truck hit the track and shifted it at least a foot before the derailment.

— Oct. 5, 2015: A passenger train headed from Vermont to Washington, D.C., derailed when it hit rocks that had fallen onto the track from a ledge. The locomotive and a passenger car spilled down an embankment, derailing three other cars and injuring seven people.

— May 12, 2015: Amtrak Train 188 was travelling at twice the 50 mph speed limit as it entered a sharp curve in Philadelphia and derailed. Eight people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the locomotive and four of the train's seven passenger cars jumped the tracks. Several cars overturned and ripped apart.

— March 9, 2015: At least 55 people were injured when an Amtrak train bound from North Carolina to New Jersey derailed after colliding with an oversized tractor-trailer that was stuck on the tracks in Halifax, North Carolina.

— June 23, 2014: An Amtrak train hit a vehicle that was apparently driving on train tracks in Massachusetts, killing three people in the vehicle and derailing the train just before midnight in a remote area about 24 miles southwest of Boston. None of the 180 people on board the train was injured.

— Oct. 21, 2012: About a dozen passengers and crew members on an Amtrak train from Chicago to Pontiac, Michigan, were injured when two locomotives and one or more coaches derailed after the train lost contact with the track near Niles, Michigan.

— Oct. 2, 2012: Two cars and the locomotive of an Amtrak train carrying about 169 passengers derailed after colliding with a semitrailer in California's Central Valley. At least 20 passengers suffered minor to moderate injuries. The train was travelling from Oakland to Bakersfield.

— June 24, 2011: A truck slammed into the side of an Amtrak California Zephyr train at a rural crossing 70 miles east of Reno, Nevada, killing six people and injuring dozens. The train was travelling from Chicago to California.

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UPDATE: 9:05 a.m.

An Amtrak train derailed south of Seattle, and authorities say "injuries and casualties" were reported.

The train derailed about 64 kilometres south of Seattle before 8 a.m. Monday, spilling at least one train car on to busy Interstate 5.

The Pierce County Sheriff's office says in a tweet that the train was heading south bound and that there were "injuries and casualties," but no numbers were immediately available.

All southbound lanes of Interstate 5 were closed south of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and motorists were being warned to avoid the area.

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ORIGINAL: 8:52 a.m.

An Amtrak train has derailed roughly 40 miles (64 kilometres) south of Seattle, spilling cars onto a busy interstate.

The train derailed just before 8 a.m.

No other information was immediately available.

The train derailed just south of Tacoma, Washington.