By Mike Lindblom, Staff Reporter; The Seattle Times; May 22, 2019
More than 50 Talgo railcars that have served the Amtrak Cascades line since 1998 will be replaced “as soon as possible,” the state announced Wednesday, a day after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the lightweight vehicles didn’t adequately shield passengers in the 2017 fatal Amtrak crash near DuPont.
The decision follows blistering comments by the NTSB that pointed fingers at track owner Sound Transit, Amtrak, the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Federal Railroad Administration for a series of training and safety-management failures that led to the derailment of a train traveling 80 mph into as curve supposed to be taken at 30 mph.