A high-speed Boston-bound Amtrak train broke apart while traveling at 125 mph through Maryland on Tuesday morning, Amtrak said.
“Earlier this morning, at approximately 6:40 a.m., Acela Express train 2150 traveling from Washington, D.C., to Boston experienced a mechanical issue when two of the train’s cars separated,” Amtrak said in a statement to Metro. “There were approximately 52 passengers aboard who were transferred to Northeast Regional Train 180. There were no reported injuries to customers or crew. We are currently investigating the cause of the car separation, inspecting every Acela trainset and taking any necessary actions to prevent a reoccurrence.”
An image shared on social media showed the disconnected train cars.
EXCLUSIVE: A high-speed Amtrak train bound for Penn Station broke apart as it was moving at top speed through Maryland, sources said https://t.co/dObKY7nzlK
— New York Post (@nypost) February 6, 2018
“Someone could have been walking through the train when that happened and fell to their death,” a source told the New York Post. “There was a lot of sparking and smoking at the head of the train and a lot of bouncing around.”
The incident came just days after an Amtrak train carrying several Republican members of Congress and their families struck a garbage truck in Virginia. One non-passenger was killed, and several passengers suffered minor injuries in that crash last Wednesday.
On Sunday, an Amtrak train carrying 139 passengers struck a freight train parked on the tracks in South Carolina, killing two.
