The tragedy, which halted service along much of the Northeast corridor, came less than one year after an Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia killed eight people.
Amtrak Vice President Stephen Gardner said the lead engine of the Palmetto train, which runs from New York City to Savannah, Ga., derailed at about 8 a.m. ET with 341 passengers and a crew of seven. Chester Fire Commissioner Travis Thomas said two people were killed.
Gardner said 31 passengers were transported to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. Other passengers were being transported by bus to train stations in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.
“Local emergency responders are on the scene and an investigation is ongoing. Northeast Corridor service between New York and Philadelphia is suspended,” Amtrak said in a statement. Amtrak later announced that service between Wilmington and Philadelphia was suspended but was expected to resume within hours.
All Amtrak service is suspended between New York City and Philadelphia at this time. Updates available at http://amtrak.com/alerts .
Scores of police, firefighters and Red Cross representatives swarmed the area Sunday. Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Matthew Lehner said federal investigators were on the scene, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators.
Chester resident Andrey Brown said he saw construction workers on the tracks late Saturday night.
“Then when I woke up this morning my mom told me that there was a train crash,” he said.
Donovan Bryan, a Defense Department worker from Springfield Va., said he was in the third car from the front when the train, rolling “full bore,” hit the construction equipment.
“I heard the bang and saw the flames shoot up, and then the train eventually came to a halt after maybe around a minute or so,” he said while waiting for his wife to pick him up at a staging area set up at a local church.
“You could feel the hit, and then (the train car) jumped and I saw flames,” he said. “And I felt the heat from the flames.”
Mariam Akhtar, of Washington, D.C., told 6abc.com that she was on the sixth car of the train.
“It felt like the train hit something and there were like three or four really big bangs and it kind of threw us off the seats we were sitting in,” she said. “There was a lot of smoke and everybody was yelling.”
Ari Ne’eman, a disability rights activist from Silver Spring, Md., who was traveling from New York to Washington, told the Associated Press she was in the train’s second car. She said the conductor sent people to the rear of the train, where they were evacuated to a nearby church.
“The car started shaking wildly, there was a smell of smoke, it looked like there was a small fire and then the window across from us blew out,” Ne’eman told AP. “It was a very frightening experience. … I was just so thankful that the train had come to a stop and we were OK.”
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