Blame Game: Teamsters’ affiliate blames Amtrak management, White House blames GOP for deadly crash

Five deaths in eastern US train derailment

On Tuesday evening, an Amtrak train traveling from Washington, DC to New York derailed North of Philadelphia, killing at least seven and injuring over 200 passengers.

Initial National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports that the train was traveling at more than 100 mph—twice the speed limit for the curve—when the train crashed.

Sumwalt: Authorized speed in the curve was 50 mph. Speed when “engineer induced braking” was applied was 106 mph. #Amtrak

— NTSB (@NTSB) May 13, 2015

Despite the initial findings of what appears to be human error, the Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Lodge 3014 (BMWE) was quick to blame Amtrak management for the crash, stating on its blog:

A massive derailment just north of Philadelphia resulted in 6 deaths, so far and over 150 people injured. This as Amtrak senior management has declared war on safety with it’s unions. The unions struggle to maintain safe working conditions is hampered by Amtrak senior management’s lust for complete control and railroad inexperience.

….

The BMWE and BRS employees work very hard to keep the tracks in top working order, and maintain a safe work enviroment, despite Amtrak senior management’s ‘all talk-no action’ attitude.

….

The new ‘One Amtrak Way’, along with the new inexperienced Amtrak senior management (after the old experienced senior managers were fired) has lead to this massive derailment. [Bold in original text.]

While the exact cause has not been determined, and the engineer (who was injured but released from the hospital) has not spoken to investigators yet, the crash does appear to be related to the engineer’s actions.

“I don’t know what was going on with him (the engineer). I don’t know what was going on in the cab, but there’s really no excuse that can be offered, literally, unless he had a heart attack,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told CNN.

Unbelievably, while the Teamsters’ affiliate—which recently called for a strike vote among its members to defend against “management attacks”—blames Amtrak management for the deadly crash, White House press secretary Josh Earnest blamed the Republican-led Congress.

Update from Rachel Maddow: ‘This is on Congress’ head.’