Montana train derailment renews calls for automated systems to detect track problems::The NTSB is renewing its calls for major freight railroads to equip every locomotive with automated track inspection devices that it believes could have prevented a 2021 train derailment that killed three people in Montana.
I was on this train. Amtrak paid me a settlement not to sue them, but it’s not Amtrak I blame, it’s BNSF, who owns the track. It’s very clear from the camera footage that the track was badly misaligned by the time the train went over it at 80 mph. That line is one of the busiest in the country, and if the freight locomotives (one of which had gone over that section of track barely an hour prior) had some kind of monitoring system, they would have alerted all the other trains to stop or slow down. I used to love riding trains, but our rail infrastructure is much too far behind places like Europe.
