Train track involved in fatal derailment lacked crucial safety system that could have prevented tragedy

Three people were killed and dozens taken to hospital

Investigators are preparing to quiz the engineer and other crew members from a fatal train derailment as questions mounted as to why a safety system designed to prevent such incidents was not in operation.

Bella Dinh-Zarr, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), confirmed the Amtrak train on a new route between between Seattle to Portland was travelling at 80mph – 50mph faster than it was supposed to be – when it left the tracks.

“If a train is going around a curve and it’s going too fast, yes, it can derail,” she said.

In the hours since Amtrak train 501 derailed close to Tacoma, Washington, killing three people and sending some of its 14 cars onto vehicles on a highway beneath, questions have focussed on a safety system known as positive train control (PTC) that was not installed at the time of the accident.

“The locomotive was in the process of getting a system of PTC installed but it was not yet functional,” Ms Dinh-Zarr said, adding that an emergency brake was automatically activated.

Under a federal law passed in 2008, all railroads are required to have PTC, which automatically slows trains if they exceed a speed limit, by the end of 2018. Congress pushed back an initial requirement to have the technology operational nationwide by 2015.

The Washington state Department of Transportation has said that the entire Cascades route will have the system in place by the end of next year. Geoff Patrick, a spokesman for Sound Transit, the regional transit agency which owns the stretch of track where the derailment happened, told The Independent PTC was not yet in operation on the track. It was due to be active by the second quarter, which he said was ahead of schedule of several other operators.

Asked if its earlier implementation would have saved lives, he said: “That is not something I’d speculate about.”

Gov Jay Inslee similarly declined to say whether the technology may have prevented the accident, deferring to the NTSB investigation. But he did mildly rebuke Donald Trump for saying in a tweet that the accident illustrated the need for legislation funding infrastructure improvements, saying “the President did not follow my advice, which is let’s not jump to conclusions before we make decisions”.

“None of us, including myself should be making conclusions about the causes of this accident at this moment,” Mr Inslee told reporters.

Investigators are working to schedule interviews with crew members who have been admitted to hospital, including the train's engineer, once they have recovered sufficiently, Ms Dinh-Zarr said.

A data recorder from one of the train's locomotives and cameras, which were badly damaged in the accident, are being sent to a laboratory in Washington, DC, where NTSB staff will try to extract information and piece together an accounting of the derailment.

Investigators have determined that, at the time of the crash, the engineer was in the train's cab with a conductor “who was getting experience and familiarising himself with the territory” while the on-duty conductor was in the train's passenger section, Ms Dinh-Zarr told reporters.

The train was carrying 80 passengers at the time, dozens of whom were injured and taken to hospital. At least 10 were said to have suffered serious injuries.

As federal investigators launched their inquiry into what caused the derailment, details about the dead began to emerge.

Two of the people identified led lives devoted to railroad transit, described in a statement from the Rail Passenger Association as “passionate advocates for passenger railroad”.

Zack Willhoite had been working for Pierce Transit for nearly a decade, most recently as a customer service support specialist, and served on the board of a nonprofit rail advocacy organisation called All Aboard Washington. Jim Hamre was a board member of the Rail Passengers Association and a veteran of the Washington State Department of Transportation.

“Jim was among the country's most-respected and effective rail advocates and a good friend and mentor to me. I will miss his counsel, and our community is poorer for his loss,” Rail Passengers Association President Jim Mathews said in a statement. “Both Jim and Zack have been advocates of transit and passenger rail for decades, and we can’t thank them enough for their work”.

Grief and tributes flowed online from friends and colleagues, who described the two men as tireless railroad enthusiasts. Separately, UK Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her condolences for the victims in a phone call with Mr Trump.

Workers were using cranes and flatbed trucks to heft the remaining train cars off of the crash site and transport them to a secure location, labouring through steady rain and wind. Authorities said Interstate 5, a major west coast highway stretching from the Canadian border to Mexico, could remain closed for days, continuing to snarl traffic throughout the area.

“This is a very careful, delicate operation,” Travis Phelps, a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Transportation, told reporters.

Once those cars are transported to a secure facility, National Transportation Safety Board will have access to gather evidence as they continue conducting their investigation of the derailment.

The part of track where the derailment happened at around 7.30am had previously been used by slow-moving freight trains but was recently upgraded to handle passenger trains as part of a $181m project to cut travel time between Tacoma and Olympia, the news agency said.

The state transportation department said the track underwent “weeks of inspection and testing” before the new route was inaugurated on Monday, setting off from Seattle for Portland at 6am.

After the derailment, people who were injured called out to rescuers, including people who had been in their vehicles nearby and who rushed to help. Among those who offered help were Daniel Konzelman, who was driving to work in Olympia with his girlfriend, Alicia Hoverson, when he noticed the train passing him.

“I noticed it was going really fast. I’d never seen a train going that fast in the past. I drive that stretch every day,” he told the Seattle Times.

He added: “I looked up and saw the train was hanging off. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this was major’.”

One of the three people to lose their life, was identified as Zack Willhoite, an employee of a local transit agency and a rail advocate.