Happening Now
Hotline #699-A
December 17, 1991
Amtrak train 87, the southbound Tampa section of the Silver Meteor, derailed this morning at 11:25 am Easter Time at Palatka, Fla. No cause has been determined. Amtrak reports that 39 of the 173 passengers on board were taken to three area hospitals; four of them appeared to have serious injuries. The locomotive derailed and two coaches derailed, but remained upright in a jack-knife position, and the rear two coaches did not derail at all. The locomotive struck an unoccupied house next to the tracks. Investigators are on the way to the scene. CSX doesn't know when the line will be clear, so in the meantime everything detours through Ocala.
"The National Association of Railroad Passengers has done yeoman work over the years and in fact if it weren’t for NARP, I'd be surprised if Amtrak were still in possession of as a large a network as they have. So they've done good work, they're very good on the factual case."
Robert Gallamore, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University and former Federal Railroad Administration official, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University
November 17, 2005, on The Leonard Lopate Show (with guest host Chris Bannon), WNYC New York.
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