DAILY BEAST: …Reports emerged Wednesday afternoon that the derailed train came close to plowing into one or more Conrail oil tanker train cars. One witness told CNN the train missed a tanker “by maybe 50 yards.” Conrail, whose lines carry between 45 and 80 oil trains through Philadelphia each week, transports crude oil headed to refineries in south Philadelphia or terminals and refining operations in New Jersey. Crude oil is explosive, and some in the media have dubbed these tankers “bomb trains.”…
At a press conference Wednesday evening, Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the oil tankers near to the derailed Amtrak train were not full, though he did not say they contained no crude oil.
“Just moments” before the derailment, Sumwalt said, the engineer operating the Amtrak train Tuesday night applied full emergency brakes. The train was traveling about 106 mph as it headed into a left turn where the maximum speed limit was 50 mph… (more)
