(The following article by Debra Lemoine was posted on the Advocate website on June 28.)
ARCOLA, La. — Amtrak passenger cars lurched off the tracks momentarily before righting themselves after hitting an apparent defect in the rail line Monday afternoon, jostling passengers and injuring nine people, a company spokesman said.
The City of New Orleans was headed north to Chicago on its daily run on the Canadian National line that parallels U.S. 51 in Tangipahoa Parish when it hit what is believed to be a defect in the track around 3:40 p.m., Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.
Five people were treated on the scene by emergency medical personnel, and four others were taken to a hospital for treatment of moderate injuries, Magliari said. The injuries were minor and not life threatening, Magliari said.
After the passengers were treated, Magliari said that the train continued its trip to Chicago around 5:40 p.m., delaying its arrival in Chicago for about two hours.
Magliari said that he did not know how fast the train was traveling at the time of the incident, but that the speed will be obtained by the train’s “black box,” where such data is recorded, after its arrival in Chicago.
However, in this incident, speed is not believed to be a factor, he said.
Magliari referred all calls on the alleged track defect to Canadian National officials.
Canadian National spokesman Jim Kvedaras said he could not say what caused the incident, but engineers were inspecting the tracks Monday evening and the investigation is ongoing.
Railway officials did not respond to requests made Tuesday for results of their inspection of the tracks at the site of the problem.
Parish President Gordon Burgess, who came to the scene, said eyewitnesses told him that it looked like the train tried to flip before righting itself and was told that a defect in the track is the likely cause of the incident.