Deadly South Carolina train crash caused by track locked in wrong position, says safety chief

A train switch that was apparently locked in the wrong position is being blamed for a train collision early Sunday that killed two people and injured up to 116 others near Cayce, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said Sunday afternoon that there’s no evidence of foul play, although the FBI is assisting in the investigation.

In the accident, an Amtrak train slammed into a stationary CSX goods train at 2.35am. An NTSB official declined to say if the accident was the fault of CSX, but noted that CSX is responsible for maintaining proper track position. CSX is the owner of the track but Amtrak uses the line.

A switch was aligned and locked to divert the Amtrak train onto a side track, where the CSX goods train was parked. The train, estimated to be travelling at more than 80km/h in a 95km/h zone, then slammed into the line of freight cars, officials said. Sumwalt said there was “no way” the Amtrak train could have stopped to avoid a collision.

“The key to this investigation is learning why that switch was lined that way,” Sumwalt said at a news conference. He said “our goal is to find out not only what happened, but why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again.’’