Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/18/amtrak-train-carrying-passenge.html
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Wow, and it’s inaugural run. Testing people. Testing. Testing.
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As an area resident… this train was part of a new higher-speed service between Tacoma and points south that launched just today. It may have literally been the first train to make the run with passengers. Someone completely screwed up.
EDIT: I see Akimbo_NOT beat me to it.
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Something about the proximity of this to the highway crossing is leaving my mind open to all the possibilities, from screw-ups all the way to tampering.
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Anything is certainly possible, but I’ve driven under that trestle many times, and there are lots of places where it would be much easier to gain access to the tracks. On the other hand, if you wanted to cause ongoing widespread disruption, that was about the best place to do it; there are very few alternate routes with that stretch of I5.
Just keep fanning those rumor flames my PWN friend…
Maybe. That bridge looks like it was made out of rust bound together by graffiti.
I do wish that when something like this happens news organizations would report the annual motorist fatalities along the same route.
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Well for that time slot. I have taken that route later in the day over a decade ago now.
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Fatalities as a result of the bridge?
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Yeah, that was my first thought when I realized it was that overpass. Probably the single ugliest feature on the entire Olympia to Seattle route.
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WTF?
“Mayor Don Anderson told the Seattle Times on Monday that his city had long objected to the new rail line, and in particular to the at-grade railroad crossings along the new route, which it contended had not received sufficient upgrades to operate safely. Given the unfamiliarity locals had with high-speed trains in the area, “we thought a train-vehicle collision was virtually inevitable,” Anderson said.”
Now people are dead. Holy law suits Batman.
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I heard there was something on the tracks that caused the derailment.
"-- Amtrak President & Co-CEO Richard Anderson said “Positive Train Control” was not activated on the tracks when the derailment happened. PTC is a technology that automatically slows down, and eventually stops, a train if it senses it is going too fast. " -CNN
Same thing that derailed an Amtrak train near Philadelphia in 2015.
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So I was right… The train itself! 
It didn’t take long for the Orange Blumpkin to politicize this tragedy.
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