Amtrak Admits It Knew About Issues that Led to Penn Station Derailment

Amtrak's CEO Wick Moorman admitted Thursday that old wood under the tracks caused this week's derailment, and that Amtrak was aware of the problem.

Moorman said Amtrak underestimated the weakness of the ties under the section of track where a NJ Transit train derailed Monday. "We had notations that these timbers needed to be replaced, we clearly did not have the understanding that there was an imminent failure," he said. 

Moorman said Amtrak has taken immediate steps to replace this section of track and to thoroughly inspect all tracks at Penn Station. 

On Monday when the train pulled into the station, the weak timbers allowed the rails to widen, and three cars slid off the tracks.

As to the rest of the tracks at Penn Station, Moorman said, "The state of the infrastructure is, I'd characterize it as fair."  

On March 24, an Acela train clipped a NJ Transit train because of a misaligned or "mismatched" rail between two pieces of rail that caused a wheel to derail. Afterward, Amtrak conducted a survey to look for similar problems and didn't find any. 

Now, Moorman says Amtrak is conducting joint inspections with the Federal Railway Administration (FRA). He added that he is personally working with independent experts to review all maintenance and engineering practices. 

Additionally, the FRA is conducting its own investigations into the two derailments.

In a statement this week, the National Transportation Safety Board said it would not be investigating this incident. "Because of our limited resources, we must carefully choose which accidents to investigate so we can focus on those that might yield the greatest safety returns," spokesman Peter Knudson, said. "We simply don’t have the resources to investigate every rail accident or incident."

On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Christie sent a letter to Amtrak chairman Anthony Coscia saying he has directed NJ Transit to withhold payments to Amtrak. He accused Amtrak of not taking its "obligations seriously," writing, "it has not effectively applied NJ Transit's considerable payments to the proper maintenance of these assets." He added that he would seek to recover the last capital investment payment NJ Transit made of $62 million. 

"Withdrawing funding is not going to solve any of the problems," CEO Moorman said. "I'll also point out that the New Jersey Transit to commit funding to Penn station is fairly recent because of congressional legislation." 

"We have a lot of customers that we deal with. In this instance we disappointed our customers, we understand that and we take responsibility and we're committed to making sure it doesn't happen again," he said.