Investigators say train's engineer exceeded speed limit before crash

CHICAGO -- An Amtrak train was going about 25 mph over the speed limit moments before it hit a stationary freight train on the city's South Side, injuring dozens of people, federal officials said Sunday.

The Amtrak train's engineer told investigators he realized the speed limit was 15 mph in that stretch of track but accelerated to 40 mph anyway, National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Robert Sumwalt said.

The speed limit on that portion of track, usually 79 mph, had been reduced to 15 mph by a red and yellow "restricting signal," indicating another train was on the same track, the official said.

Moments after accelerating, the engineer noticed the freight train on the tracks ahead and applied his emergency brakes; the passenger train then skidded about 400-500 feet and slammed into the freight train at about 35 mph, Sumwalt said.

Sumwalt declined to assess blame or say human error caused Friday's accident, and he did not say why the engineer may have been speeding.

"Part of our investigation is to figure out why that signal (indicating the 15 mph limit) was not obeyed," Sumwalt said.

Federal authorities Sunday wrapped up two days of investigations, which included interviews with crew members and reviews of data from event recorders as they tried to determine why two trains ended up on the same track.

Investigators would try to reconstruct the crash and potentially dismantle the locomotive to figure out what went wrong, Sumwalt said.

The analysis of the information gathered would likely take months.

"We're not here to point fingers," he said. "We're here to find out what happened so we can keep it from happening again.... This is the very beginning of this investigation."

Most of the 187 passengers on board the "Pere Marquette" traveling to Chicago from Grand Rapids, Mich., walked away without major injuries from the impact, which catapulted people from their seats.

The accident sent 71 people to hospitals. Three people -- one Amtrak crew member and two passengers -- were hospitalized overnight and released Saturday.

A police surveillance camera mounted on a nearby post recorded the accident and the NTSB would review the footage, Sumwalt said. He added that investigators would not immediately make that footage available to the media.

The accident caused $1.3 million in damage, federal authorities said.

Most of damage to the passenger train was concentrated at its engine, where two of the five Amtrak crew were when the accident occurred, authorities said.

The train's three double-decker passenger cars remained upright.

The Norfolk Southern freight train was traveling from Elizabeth, N.J., to Chicago, and neither of two workers aboard was hurt.