The journey would take the boat northward into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. A fire of unknown cause took place in a passenger car. Details on the bent track were included in hundreds of pages of [] Andrea's wheelchair made boarding more difficult than for other passengers, but she was thrilled about her first train ride. "We were throwing sheets and blankets out of the cars that were still on the track to the people who were wet from being in the water," said Edward Mouton, a 20-year-old passenger from Los Angeles. The agency held a public hearing in Mobile, just miles from the bayou, made multiple recommendations to improve safety, and the world moved on. Forty-seven people died and more than 100 others were hurt. (Lawrence Specker/LSpecker@AL.com ), Twenty-three years after the Sunset Limited crash, there's little to distinguish the bridge over Bayou Canot. Out of 220 people aboard, 42 passengers and five crew members died; more than 100 more were injured. Most survivors suffered only minor injuries; seven people were admitted to hospitals. The other two engines and three cars have yet to be recovered. Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 02:55, 1990 derailment and collision with a commuter train, "Wake Forest Fire Department, Our History", "AMTRAK TRAIN HITS TRUCK CARRYING GAS; 2 ARE KILLED", "VIEW OF CROSSING OBSTRUCTED IN FATAL VA. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. The barges were lashed three wide and two deep, he said, and may have been too large to be legally using the narrow waterway. KANSAS CITY, Mo. Paiz, who cannot swim, said he admired his septuagenarian seatmate for taking that plunge. The location was familiar from news coverage and documentaries, he said, but after seeing it in person, "I feel a little relief." At the scene of the Sunset Limited crash in 2003, he said, "They let me out on the bank and I crawled up through the briars and rip-rap" with another man to begin assisting passengers. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. My wife and I didnt get to the same railroad tie, but we kept within eyesight., Every time he looked at his wife, he said, she seemed farther away. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Five other incidents have caused ten or more deaths: a 1987 collision with freight locomotives in Maryland, a 1971 derailment in Illinois, a 1996 collision with a commuter train in Maryland, a 1999 grade crossing accident in Illinois, and a 1977 grade crossing accident in Florida. He said he was the last to leave. The train derailed on a curve while leaving. Ivory, who was honored by the Coast Guard with another passenger, Michael Dopheide, for his life-saving efforts that night, also struggled with the aftermath. A 1990 derailment and collision with a commuter train in Massachusetts caused 453 injuries but no deaths. The railroad company that owns the track where a deadly Amtrak derailment took place in June near Mendon, Missouri has filed a request to force arbitration for victims of the crash and to. Investigators said the bridge had been struck by a wayward barge in fog not long before. On Monday, it cost Loomis 17+ years of his life. Officials identified 74-year-old Donald Varnadoe and his 72-year-old wife Marjorie as two of the . Watts said he and his wife were in the water for about 30 minutes before they reached safety. The engineer, who was found to have been smoking marijuana, received a five-year prison sentence. (AP) An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago struck a dump truck Monday in a remote area of Missouri, killing three people and injuring dozens more as rail cars tumbled off the tracks and landed on their sides, officials said. Did one of her parents lift her out of the bayou waters before drowning, as news reports at the time said, or did God save her for something special? The train collided with a work train due to an improperly set switch. As Odom tried to find a tree to tie up until the fog lifted, records show, a barge struck a bridge support, bending the rail tracks more than one yard out of line just eight minutes before the Amtrak train arrived. Investigators said 163 people survived. The train derailed due to oscillations from defective track. "Some people were hysterical. All Rights Reserved. 1993, Section A, Page 15 Buy . Or was it simply luck? It was caused by displacement of a span and deformation of the rails when a tow of heavy barges collided with the rail bridge eight minutes earlier. March 17, 1993 Amtrak Silver Star hits gasoline tanker. (Lawrence Specker/LSpecker@AL.com ), Since his brother died in the 1993 crash of the Sunset Limited, Tom Russ of Foley had never visited the scene of the accident. It left Los Angeles on Sunday, changed crews in New Orleans and headed toward Alabama. Then he noticed a piece of timber. Mr. Archer said F.B.I. He just thought, Hey, this is a great game! . The train struck a tractor-trailer at a grade crossing. He was pronounced in good condition at a nearby hospital. On board the Sunset Limited, Andrea Chancey was trying to doze off as the train click-clacked through the night. He saw four Amtrak crew members standing on the roof of one of the locomotives. "Whoever it was was being consumed by the water at that time," he recalled. He said the F.B.I. An hour earlier, a 132-car CSX freight train with three locomotives had crossed the trestle without mishap. "I was asleep, and a jolt woke me up, knocked me from my seat, and by the time I awoke, water was coming into the car.". A string of crashes involving Amtrak. The FBI said a tugboat pushing six barges loaded with concrete and coal might have rammed and weakened the trestle shortly before the Sunset Limited arrived. routinely investigated such accidents under Federal train wreck statutes, which make it a Federal crime to sabotage or damage a train in interstate commerce. The train was struck by a tractor-trailer at a grade crossing. Copyright 2023 Deseret News Publishing Company. Amtrak train collides with vehicle at California intersection without crossing arms, killing three Amtrak had said earlier that there were approximately 243 passengers and 12 crew members. Around him Dopheide saw a tragedy. Her upkeep was funded partly by a trust fund set up by Amtrak and CSX, which owned the bridge. Amtrak crash victims being identified as driver's name emerges. 1:23. Amtrak crash victims in Philadelphia include midshipman Justin Zemser, Jim Gaines of AP, Abid Gilani of Wells Fargo and Rachel Jacobs of ApprenNet. That little boy never fussed or bothered. The Missouri State Highway Patrol announced Wednesday the names of four people who died in connection to Monday's Amtrak train . The rails were displaced, but unbroken - meaning that a warning system wasn't triggered. Odom, the towboat pilot, was named as a defendant in more than 90 lawsuits after the crash but never faced criminal charges. The train derailed due to a cracked wheel. This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 02:55. Anyone can read what you share. Mr. Archer noted, as did Secretary Pena, that at least one locomotive had "literally flown through the air. The train collided with a CSX freight train. 'I survived the deadliest train crash in Amtrak's history' When the Sunset Limited sleeper train to Savannah, Georgia derailed, 47 people died in the horrific crash that followed. Twenty. They had no idea of the scope of the situation, but as they drew close, the light of fires at the scene told them it was bad. Others climbed out of the train. The train derailed on a curve due to excessive speed. Get up to speed with our Essential California newsletter, sent six days a week. The accident killed 16 people and injured 175. The nose of the 80-foot lead locomotive was buried in bayou silt. The train derailed due to defective track. For his part, Paiz said he helped other passengers out through a window on the lower side of his car. Still in a wheelchair, she has help during daylight hours from home health aides. Another 103 were injured. Suddenly, those three and more than 200 other people were caught up in what remains the deadliest accident in Amtrak history, the derailment of the Los Angeles-to-Miami Sunset Limited in a south Alabama bayou in 1993. Forty-seven people, 42 of whom were passengers,[1] were killed many by drowning, others by fire/smoke inhalation. After midnight on Sept. 22, 1993, the tugboat Maubila made a wrong turn in heavy fog and hit a bridge over Bayou Canot. One had a deep gash on its bow. Trestle Is Focus. None of the 85 people onboard were injured, Aubert said.. The train collided with a stopped CSX freight train. But he saw that it offered a way to escape. (Lawrence Specker/LSpecker@AL.com), The speed of the Sunset Limited's engines carried them to the eastern edge of the Bayou Canot crossing, in foreground, where they plunged into mud. The bridge was only seven to 12 feet above the water (depending on the tides) and was in place so that trains could pass through the swamps. Riders, many of them asleep when the train derailed at 2:47 a.m. local time, screamed and scrambled through the wreckage. The flames engulfed nine vehicles waiting for the train to pass the crossing, killing the truck driver, three people in a van and two in cars. It had smashed through a window, he said, and was keeping the car from submerging completely. BNSF owns the railroad tracks used by Amtrak when a Southwest Chief train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago collided with a pickup truck that was blocking an intersection near Mendon, Missouri. Victims of Amtrak Accident Near Mobile. People shouted at him, he said, asking him to look for medicine and purses. "I haven't taken another train since then," said Ivory. It was a long drop to the water below. Archer, special agent in charge of the Mobile office of the FBI, said his investigators were looking into three possible causes: sabotage, structural defects and the likelihood that the bridge had been rammed by barges. Willie Odom has suffered enough, Chancey said, particularly considering he helped save 17 people after the crash -- including her -- using the same towboat that hit the bridge. All three locomotives and four of the eight cars on the train were off the bridge and in the bayou. 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