— One crewman suffered a foot injury when nine auto racks of Amtrak’s northbound Auto Train derailed Thursday afternoon near DeLand, Fla. None of the train’s passenger cars derailed and no passengers were injured, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, which attributed the derailment to “a problem with the track.” The passenger portion of the train eventually continued north. The Amtrak Alerts twitter feed reports today’s AutoTrain has been cancelled in both directions; today’s Silver Star and Silver Meteor will originate in Jacksonville instead of Miami, while the southbound versions of those trains that departed yesterday will terminate in Jacksonville.
— A New York subway conductor has died of the coronavirus, becoming the first reported Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker to be killed by the disease. The New York Daily News reports that Peter Petrassi, 49, served as a conductor for 21 years and most recently was working in subway operations at an office in Long Island City, N.Y. Subsequently, bus operator Oliver Cyrus, 61, a 21-year veteran of the MTA, also was reported to have died of the COVID-19 virus. They were among at least 52 MTA employees who have tested positive for the virus.
— The Transportation Security Administration will require freight and passenger railroads and public transportation agencies to train employees to “observe, assess, and respond to terrorist-related threats and/or incidents” if they are considered “higher-risk operations” under a rule published in the Federal Register on March 23. The rule estimates about 300 of the nation’s approximately 10,000 surface transportation operations will meet that criteria, including Class I railroads; others handling certain hazardous materials; Amtrak; 46 specified transit agencies in eight major metropolitan areas; and other transit agencies which host a higher-risk freight railroad. The rule, available here, is effective June 22, 2020.
Depending on where near Deland it derailed, some of the track in that area is double track. The thing not announced was what about the SB 53 for that day. Now sending 52 on North without the auto carriers also poses a logistics problem. When they get to Lorton, the passengers would have had to be put up somewhere until the autos arrived. Bet the Comfort Inn at Lorton was busy.
Mr Chambers where did you hear about the Texas Eagle and truck?
Amtrak’s northbound Texas Eagle train struck a semi truck north of Texarkana, Arkansas yesterday.
I thought that I was receiving that training when I retired five years ago. Most of it consisted of reporting the type of activity that railfans commonly engage in.
@ Gerald: Takin pictures is not a “threat” or an “incident” but yes I agree. Taking pictures can be considered a “threat”. It just depends on that employee who’s a jerk, I personally have come across RR employees who are total jerks, lets not pretend that all those RR guys and transit employees are a bunch of great guys and gals. And growing up in Chicago, sadly to say, were more arrogant and rude than the nice ones, sad to say. The nice ones seem to calm the jerks down, sometimes.
Brett Reid,
In this case I disagree with you…and the biggest reason is the rail fan community, if the TSA was smart, and believe me, they aren’t all they’d have to do is enlist the rail fan community to report suspicious activity around railroads. What’s going to happen now is you’ll see a lot of rail fans getting harassed for absolutely no reason other than some railroader reported them…most of those employees aren’t going to understand what they’re being taught anyways, more waste of money.
The TSA story should have been done Post 9-11, like 19 years ago. Really? Now they’re doin that?
Details on the Texas Eagle accident.
https://txktoday.com/news/amtrak-train-strikes-semi-truck/