Railroad Disasters

The deadline for installing and implementing positive train control, known as PTC, is Dec. 31, 2018. It likely will come and go, with a majority of the country’s railways basically arguing they don’t have enough resources to meet it. Industry leaders testifying in front of the House Subcommittee on Railroads, […]

Penny-Pinching on Positive Train Control  Amtrak trains have been involved in four deaths since December 2017, including the most recent tragedy in South Carolina that killed two crew members and injured more than 100 passengers. The engineer of the Miami-bound train, 54-year-old Michael Kempf, of Georgia, died after crashing into […]

Reports are developing that the recent and tragic crash of an AmTrak train, running on CSX rails, might have been avoided if a safety feature called a “positive train control” (PTC) had been employed at the time. This is technology what one of our firm’s partners wrote about on May […]

Another tragedy on an AMTRAK train has caused the loss of lives and serious injuries in Dupont, Washington this morning. There are reports the train, the Cascades service from Seattle to Portland was travelling on tracks rated at a maximum speed of 79 mph, while the Cascades was reported to […]

Avoidable Tragedy A few days ago, it was a Philadelphia train derailment that claimed (7) dead and over 130 injured. Since 1991, the railway industry led by CSX has been trying to assure the public that rail transportation is just fine. As, Pulitzer Prize winning author David Johnston discovered in […]

Can Positive Train Control Help Prevent Another Train Accident? After most tragedies involving the loss of life and hundreds of injured people, we reflect on: what could have been done to avoid this? What safety measures were in place or should have been in place that might have limited the […]

Memories of Tragedies on the Rails On May 13, 2015, once again tragedy struck as an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, killing six people and injuring more than 130. One of those killed was a Naval Academy midshipman on leave. This shocking and catastrophic derailment brings back memories for Attorneys […]

Is the phrase, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” in the constitution? Popular belief is yes, but it is not actually in the constitution. Rather, this phrase comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It is probably a concept that should have been incorporated into […]

There are few things we as people endure that are worse than losing a member of our family. The sense of loss, hurt, and anguish, however, is only magnified when a family member’s death was due to the negligence of someone else. What all-too-often causes even more heartache is the […]

Railroad accidents, while not as common as those involving trucks and cars, are often the most gruesome. We are fascinated by television footage of flattened railroad cars, scattered belongings, and shell-shocked passengers. But when we’re in a hurry, it is tempting to ignore the flashing lights at a clearly-marked crossing […]