Amtrak Search Discovers 8th Body in Wreck; House Republicans Block Democrats' Attempt to Boost Amtrak Budget as Tempers Flair
An eighth body was discovered among the Amtrak train wreck on Thursday, nearly 36 hours after the train derailed and rolled onto its side outside of Philadelphia. Tempers meanwhile flared at the House of Representatives, where Republicans blocked an attempt from Democrats to boost Amtrak's budget by more than $1 billion just hours after the crash.
CBS News reported that all 243 passengers and crew members who were believed to have been on board the train have now been accounted for.
The body of an eighth person, who is yet to be identified, was reportedly found by a cadaver dog searching through the wreck, revealed Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer.
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Mayor Michael Nutter has suggested that the high speed of 106 mph the train reached before it derailed was a contributing factor in the crash.
"I don't think that any commonsense, rational person would think that it was OK to travel at that level of speed knowing that there was a pretty significant restriction on how fast you could go through that turn," Nutter said on Thursday.
The mayor initially called the scene of the crash an "absolute disastrous mess," the likes of which he had never seen before.
"It is a devastating scene down there," he said. "We walked the entire length of the train area, and the engine completely separated from the rest of the train, and one of the cars is perpendicular to the rest of the cars. It's unbelievable."
The Mail Online pointed out that just hours after the derailment on Wednesday, House Republicans voted against an attempt by Democrats to boost Amtrak's budget by more than $1 billion. Democrats pointed out that the train that crashed was not yet fitted with new safety technology meant to prevent precisely this type of high-speed derailments.
"Every day, tens of thousands of passengers travel our nation's railways on Amtrak – a majority of those along the Northeast Corridor where yesterday's tragic accident occurred," Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah said. "These riders deserve safe, secure, and modern infrastructure."
Amtrak officials revealed that the derailed train was equipped with the automatic speed control system but was not yet operational due to budgetary shortfalls and bureaucratic rules.
Although Congress had ordered in 2008 the installation of positive train control systems, which can detect speeding trains and slow them down, Amtrak was not granted access to the wireless frequency needed to make them work, The New York Times reported.
Representative Robert A. Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said that if the system had been operational, "there wouldn't have been this accident."
Republicans have pushed back against suggestions that more money spent on the Amtrak budget could have prevented the crash, however.
"You have no idea what caused this accident," Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson told Democrats. "Don't use this tragedy in that way. It was beneath you."
The White House has said it is too soon to form conclusions about what caused the crash. Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, pointed out, however, that the railroad has suffered significant cuts to its budget.
"You're looking at more than a 15 percent cut in investments in Amtrak," Donovan told reporters.
