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| Washington derailment: Amtrak passenger train falls off track onto busy motorway | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| An Amtrak train has derailed on an overpass in Washington State and is hanging over a major highway. | |
| The train derailed on a bridge over a major highway in DuPont, Washington, blocking all southbound lanes on Interstate 5 and prompting a massive emergency response, according to local authorities. | |
| The Pierce County Sheriff's Department said it had reports of both injuries and casualties. Among the injured were motorists who had been struck by the derailed cars, none of whom were killed. | |
| Washington Gov Jay Inslee offered a message of support to first responders and urged commuters to avoid the area. | |
| “This is an ongoing and serious situation,” Mr Inslee said on Twitter. | |
| In an image shared by the Washington State Department of Transportation, a train car can be seen hanging off of the tracks and protruding into the highway. The agency noted that all southbound lanes were blocked and urged commuters to avoid the area. | |
| The National Transportation Safety Board, the federal entity responsible for investigating such accidents, said on Twitter that it was still gathering information. | |
| “We are aware of an incident involving Amtrak train 501,” Amtrak said on Twitter. “We will update with additional details as they become available.” | |
| The train is believed to be the Cascades passenger train number 501, which left Seattle at 7.25am local time and was due in Portland, Oregon at 11.05am. Two new trains a day were scheduled to begin running on that line on the same day the derailment occurred, according to a Washington Department of Transportation press release. In that release, an official touted “more schedule choices and better reliability”. | |
| On a Monday morning, it is likely to have been busy with business travellers as well as leisure passengers. Like most US long-distance trains, fares are heavily subsidised: the 200-mile trip costs as little as $26 one way, around £20, so increasingly many people use the train as an alternative to driving or flying, taking advantage of the scenic landscape. | |
| The line of the Cascades is part of the key west coast long-distance rail artery, a route between Vancouver in Canada and San Diego on the Mexican border. While there are six trains a day scheduled each way between Seattle and Portland, the main users of US railroads are freight trains. | |
| The US rail network sees far more accidents than European railways. In the UK there have been no fatal accidents in the past 10 years. In the US, there have been 10, with dozens of passengers losing their lives. | |
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