it was like an episode from grey's anatomy. people were thrown out of cars and then pinned by the falling car. fortunately, they looked very flimsy. i wonder how long the engineer and training conductor will be in "medical comas.." Do we know that the engineer was actually the one driving the train? was he/she told to go as fast as possible? this really does not make sense as there are very frequent slow downs and stopping of trains on the regular route.

where are the other staff members? I can tell you from riding this route repeatedly that some of the conductors and staff just can not be bothered. We were stuck in lacey a few months ago for hours and they were just in a huddle shooting the breeze...one person who had been going to get off in kelso got right back on the train when she heard of the mudslide so she was good. they usually won't tell you a darn thing although that could be getting better...they really and truly do not seem to care. they do not seem to have a normal sense of responsibility to the easiest things..back to toilet situations. back to telling people in a station they will have to wait two hours.

there has been a what seems to me abnormal number of pronouncements about the second distraction person in the cab. i would think second people would be quite the norm. what are they bracing us for?

i have many questions. why did it take so long to get cranes there? this is a hugely built up area right next to Ft. Lewis. The trains were dangling from a highway. The drop fortunately was not too high. A simple cherry picker to get photos at least..drive them up, send someone up with a camera. where were all the drones? must be millions in the area...illegal probably but this accident should have used them..perhaps they did. was there an attempt made to somehow secure the dangling trains or cut them loose if it could be done safely...how did everyone get out of the dangling trains? apparently a window was broken out and they were able to climb down onto a smashed truck or other train car. could they get everyone out of those cars?

i have been saying for years how incompetent amtrak is. totally dysfunctional operation. get some swiss in here or japanese to run it. or the corrupt communist committee. anything would be better. and google just how many derailments there have been just in the last two years...several involving massive speeding..oh one had undiagnosed severe sleep apnea...how could you have undiagnosed severe sleep apnear? Would not anyone notice? It is a mess. America (by which I mean the united states portion of it) deserves better.