Amtrak train to Washington, D.C., derails in central Vermont

The track where the crash occurred had been part of a $220 million upgrade of New England Central Railroad tracks funded with help from a $50 million federal recovery grant. Two cars fell down an embankment following the crash, one which held the fuel supply.

Seven passengers were injured after a passenger train derailed in Northfield Monday.

Dana Huoppi, a representative with the Montpelier Fire Department, said no less than two autos went off the track and over a dike.

Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said the person most seriously injured in the Monday derailment of the Amtrak Vermonter, a conductor who had been riding in the locomotive alongside the engineer, had been released from the hospital.

Six people were taken by ambulance to Central Vermont Medical Center, while the seventh was transported by helicopter ambulance to Dartmouth Medical Center.

Federal investigators are on the scene.

Bob Redmond, of Bay City, Michigan, was taking a foliage tour and sitting in the front row of the third auto when the train derailed Monday morning.

Government specialists said the preparatory reason for the mischance was a stone slide in the train’s way. He looked outside the window and saw the vehicle that had been ahead of his was now alongside him. As he exited the train and helped other passengers do the same, Brown realized the train had come off the rails.

Brown had just settled into his seat in back of the second-to-last auto of the Amtrak Vermonter train, preparing for the 12-hour ride from Burlington back to his home in Baltimore. In 2010, a train in Beijing hit mounds of debris left on the track following a landslide, killing 19 people.

A Windsor couple was aboard the southbound Amtrak train that derailed MondayOct. “Today’s derailment, which left a horrifying zigzag of steel sliding off the tracks, raises anew important, vital questions about rail safety and maintenance”, the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement.

Federal investigators are en route to the site.

At least several dozen passengers were loaded onto school buses to be taken to an armory at nearby Norwich University.

Amtrak says there were no life-threatening injuries reported.

It was due to arrive in New York at 6.25pm and Washington, D.C., at 9.59pm.

They said that the Division of Emergency Management & Homeland Security, State Police, and Search and Rescue coordinated assets and assistance to local responders should they be needed. “Emergency personnel are on the scene & we are assessing the situation”.

Amtrak confirmed in a Twitter post Monday that the Vermonter train had derailed.

The 13-hour, 45-minute daily trip begins in St. Albans in northern Vermont. Likewise, Train 56 from D.C.to St. Albans will end in Springfield.

The company said there were no reports of life-threatening injuries from the incident in Northfield near Bull Run Road and Vermont 12. No information was available on their conditions.