Trains

The labor impasse doesn’t involve workers who operate Amtrak trains, such as those that run on the Cascade corridor in Oregon and Washington. But those trains operate on tracks controlled by freight railroad companies and maintained by the employees who would be out on strike.

National Transportation Safety Board officials raised questions at an investigative hearing this week about the problematic curve where the deadly Washington derailment occurred.

Amtrak Cascades and Coast Starlight services are suspended between Portland and Seattle until 10 p.m. Sunday.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about why the Amtrak 501 train hit a 30 mile per hour curve at nearly 80 miles per hour. But here’s a snapshot of what we do know.

When Monday’s inaugural trip of the Amtrak Cascades train along its new route crashed south of Tacoma, the lives of hundreds of people were thrown into chaos.

Positive Train Control is a technology meant to override possible human error that can lead to train derailments. But Congress has delayed its implementation. 

Train Mountain is the world’s largest miniature railroad, with 36 miles of tiny track, weaving through 2,300 acres of forest in remote southern Oregon.

An investigation into a recent passenger train derailment near Steilacoom, Washington, reveals speed and human error are to blame.

A bill was pulled from the Oregon House floor and returned to committee over concerns about language that would make secret railroad spill contingency plans and financial responsibility documents.

Simple steps could have prevented the fiery derailment. Had inspectors walked the stretch of track in the weeks or months prior, they might have spotted the broken bolts, but no one did.