NTSB says Amtrak engineer was new to Northeast Corridor

MAY 19, 2015
PHILADELPHIA, PA

Train Engineer Brandon Bostian had only been working on the Northeast Corridor for fewer than three weeks. An NTSB spokesman says "it was two weeks, give or take a few days."  

  

On Friday, NTSB Boardmember Robert Sumwalt described Bostian's experience as "a few weeks" a fact that went largely unnoticed due to the windshield news.

While investigators have not definitively ruled out mechanical failure, a focus of the investigation is on the train operator and his actions in the locomotive in the moments leading up to the derailment -- his relative lack of experience on the line and how that played in is also to be examined in the coming weeks.

Also Tuesday, the union representing railroad employees blasted congress and Amtrak for a federal mandate requiring just one engineer in the cab of a trains on the Northeast Corridor. Congress passed a law reducing the required number of operators from 2 to 1 in the early 1980s, the union says.

A few years back I told my boss that railroads in general never wanted the American public to ever learn what truly happens here. He asked why....We have complained about lack of training for years if not decades. You can follow that up with safety. This list goes on and on.  I do have to add however this engineer still had his timetable with him that lists his speeds, and the first month or so we all used cheat sheets until we knew everything.

"On Friday, NTSB Boardmember Robert Sumwalt described Bostian's experience as "a few weeks" a fact that went largely unnoticed due to the windshield news."

No, it went largely unnoticed due to the incompetence of those covering the story. 

OK, it doesn't matter in the slightest that they changed the law reducing the required number of operators from 2 to 1.  That's a *MINIMUM* requirement.

Amtrak could have put 5 guys in the cab and still been following the law.  They just chose not to.

Remember any time a company spouts that they are following the minimum requirements of the law.  They can still go above and beyond and do more.