At least seven people are hurt after an Amtrak train derailed in Vermont Monday morning, sending three cars over a steep embankment. We were jockeying back and forth, thrown up and down before (the train) came to rest.
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“It was like the train hit the brakes and it made a noise like we ran over something and then we stopped quick because we hit something”, said passenger Janice Bralley. Redmond was riding in one of the train cars that went over that embankment.
The Vermonter runs between St. Albans, Vermont and Washington, D.C., stopping in western Massachusetts along the way.
The person transported to a hospital by helicopter was talking, according to Vermont State Police spokesman Scott Waterman.
One of the injured people was airlifted to a New Hampshire hospital and was evaluated in its emergency room. He would not comment on the status of that persons injuries pending notification of family. Amtrak said none of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening.
Most everyone on board the southbound Amtrak Vermonter Monday walked away without injuries – many were tourists and many were Vermonters.
A first responder, right, examines railroad passenger cars at the scene of an Amtrak passenger train derailment Monday in Northfield. The woman had a camera and binoculars around her neck.
I was asleep on the train when it derailed.
Passengers said it appeared large rocks had fallen onto the track and a few said the train was traveling about 50 miles per hour when it derailed, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus reports.
Cranes will be used to lift the Amtrak cars off the tracks and the brook, clean up diesel fuel that spilled and rebuild the track, officials said. There was allegedly only one person in the passenger cars that fell off the tracks.
The derailment occurred at approximately 10:30 a.m. Monday, according to a spokeswoman for the Montpelier Fire Department.
The May 12 accident spurred lawmakers to push through implementation of technology that could have prevented the accident but the rail industry has pressed for an extension of a year-end deadline to install so-called positive train control (PTC) for another three years.
The passengers were loaded onto buses to be taken to an armory near Norwich University.
Before the conference, Shumlin met and chatted with passengers.
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State officials said a freight train had passed over the same tracks Sunday night with no problems. Gov. Peter Shumlin says, “This was a freak of nature”.
