Story highlights
NEW: Amtrak to restore normal service between Philadelphia and Delaware, but delays are possible
Two people killed in the Sunday crash were Amtrak construction workers, a source says
Amtrak said Monday it will restore service, albeit with some delays, along the route where one of its trains carrying 341 passengers crashed into a backhoe the day before.
“We’re still gathering the facts,” said Ryan Frigo, the National Transportation Safety Board official in charge of investigating the crash, which killed two people.
Here’s a look at what we know – and don’t know – so far:
The investigation
NTSB officials will be looking at multiple factors that may have played into the crash: mechanical, operations, signal, track, human performance and survival.
Frigo said that the event data recorder and forward-facing and inward-facing video from the locomotive have been recovered.
The big unanswered questions: Why was the backhoe on the track near Chester, just south of Philadelphia? Why did the train continue its route from New York to Savannah, Georgia, when Amtrak construction workers may have been on the track?
And why didn’t the construction workers move if a train was coming?
The crash
The two people killed were construction workers for the railroad service, a source close to the investigation said. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said the two people killed were the backhoe operator and his supervisor, both Amtrak employees.
The crash Sunday morning also left 35 people injured, according to the Chester Fire Department.
The two fatalities were found on or near the backhoe, Pennsylvania Emergency Management spokeswoman Ruth Miller said.
The train was carrying about 341 passengers and seven crew members when it crashed, Amtrak said. The impact caused the lead engine of the train to derail.
The victims
Cristine Starke said the crash felt like an explosion.
“I think we crumbled under the pressure,” she told CNN. “There’s a hole, and it looks as if the train bent, and that was about 2 feet in front of me. It felt like an explosion. I ended up on the ground.”
The debris was so thick that it looked like snow on the windows, she said.
Even before the crash, Glenn Hills said he knew something was wrong.
He didn’t see the backhoe that lay ahead on the track. But “there was a lot of debris in the track, and we started driving through that,” the Brooklyn resident said. “There was a lot of gravel noise.”
But the mess wasn’t confined to the track, Hills said.
“I looked outside, and it looked like we were in this brown cloud,” he said, speculating that the dustiness came from construction or high winds. “We were rolling into this storm, this sandstorm.”
That’s when passengers started panicking. Then the train slammed into the backhoe.
Hills said the impact didn’t feel severe from the second passenger car, where he was sitting.
“There was tremendous impact on the first car,” Hills said. He said the roof of that car was torn open, and several windows were broken.
“It feels like a nightmare,” he said. “It felt like this is that experience that I’ve feared in the past.”
Three accidents, one day
In about 12 hours, there were three train accidents – including the Chester crash – in the United States on Sunday.
Another incident occurred in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, an Amtrak spokesman said. A trespasser was struck and injured Sunday evening.
In the small Illinois town of Somonauk, a 28-year-old was killed when an Amtrak train struck a vehicle at a roadway crossing, authorities said.
Some delays
Amtrak initially said it was providing limited service between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, as the Federal Railroad Administration and NTSB investigate. A later statement said that trains will run as regularly scheduled but that there would be some delays between Philadelphia and Wilmington.
The crash came less than a month after an Amtrak train headed from Chicago to Los Angeles derailed in Kansas, injuring 32 people.
It also came almost a year after another Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia – one that left eight people dead and more than 200 injured.
Amtrak 188 driver: ‘I don’t remember anything’ before crash
Sunday’s crash near Philadelphia made Hills consider whether he should fly more.
“I rely on Amtrak a lot, and I travel for my job in the Northeast Corridor a lot,” said Hills, who works in the specialty food industry. “This incident has really fed my fears.”
But is it enough to make him stop riding trains?
“Unfortunately, no. We rely on it too much in this part of the country.”
CNN’s David Shortell and Sara Ganim reported from Pennsylvania; CNN’s Dana Ford and Holly Yan reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN’s Vivian Kuo, Tony Marco, Sarah Jorgensen and Mariano Castillo also contributed to this report.