Two people were killed and 116 were injured when an Amtrak passenger train diverted off the main track onto a rail siding and crashed into a stationary freight train in South Carolina earlier this morning.
Amtrak Train 91 was traveling south and should have continued straight down the tracks, but the rail switch had been manually set to send the train onto the rail siding where another train was parked.
Key to that investigation is learning why that switch was lined that way.
Video from the front of the Amtrak train had been recovered and sent to Washington, where it will be inspected.
This will help investigators determine what happened in the 2:30 a.m. collision including whether the train was exceeding the 59 miles per hour speed limit.
Source: CNN and NYTimes
