Feds cite lax safety in Amtrak crash

PHILADELPHIA — The engineer of an Amtrak train that slammed into a backhoe near Philadelphia last April, killing two workers, tested positive for marijuana after the crash, according to documents released Thursday that pointed to a lax safety culture at the railroad.

Investigators found that the maintenance crew had failed to follow safety procedures designed to keep workers safe and that Amtrak management was wrong to let the work go on without a detailed plan identifying hazards and ways to mitigate them.

Amtrak’s assertions that the work was part of an ongoing, routine maintenance project that didn’t require a detailed plan “are simply a post-accident circling of the wagons to deny supervisory or management involvement in the review of a project gone bad,” investigators wrote.

The documents don’t come to any official conclusions on the cause of the crash.

The train’s engineer, 47-year-old Alexander Hunter, told investigators that he knew of maintenance work being done in the area but wasn’t given any warnings about equipment being on the same track as his train.

Hunter blew the train’s horn and hit the brakes once he saw equipment on an adjacent track and then on his own track, about five seconds before impact.

The train slowed from 106 mph to 100 mph at impact and only came to a complete stop about a mile down the track. The lead engine of the train was derailed.

The train was heading from New York to Savannah, Ga., when it struck the backhoe about 15 miles outside of Philadelphia.

Backhoe operator Joseph Carter Jr., 61, and supervisor Peter Adamovich, 59, were killed and 40 train passengers were hurt.