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 But when questioned for the first time about the crash Tuesday
night, the Amtrak engineer who was driving the train said he had no
memory of anything that happened shortly before the wreck, which
killed eight people and injured more than 200 others, said Robert
Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was called in to examine a
remnant of the Amtrak locomotive's shattered windshield with a
circular damage pattern, Sumwalt said.
The revelation that Amtrak train No. 188 might have been struck by a
bullet, rock or other object added an unexpected twist to a crash
probe that initially focused on why the train had accelerated to
over 100 miles per hour (160 km per hour) in the minute before it
barreled into a curved track segment where the authorized speed
limit was just 50 mph (80 kph).
An assistant conductor told NTSB investigators on Friday that the
train run that day had been unremarkable until a few minutes after
pulling out of Philadelphia's 30th Street station, the last stop
before the accident, Sumwalt said.
 At that point, she heard the engineer, 32-year-old Brandon Bostian,
talking by radio with the driver of another train from the
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).
The other driver, according to her account, said he had reported to
a train dispatcher that his windshield had been cracked by a
projectile that he believed was either fired from a gun or thrown at
his train, and that he had made an emergency stop as a result,
Sumwalt said.
The conductor told investigators that Bostian then replied that he
believed his own New York-bound Amtrak train had been similarly
struck, Sumwalt said.
It was moments later that the Amtrak train began to round the curved
section of track at twice the authorized speed and derailed in the
city's Port Richmond neighborhood along the Delaware River,
according to her account.
Sumwalt said FBI agents would arrive on Friday night to examine a
portion of the lower left-hand corner of the locomotive's battered
windshield that appeared to have been cracked by a flying object of
some type.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and other media outlets reported Friday
that a third train, an Amtrak Acela, had also been hit by an
unidentified projectile that cracked a window on one of the cars
about five minutes before it entered the 30th Street station, citing
an account of a passenger.
CBS News cited federal safety investigators as saying they were
aware of the report of a third train being hit.
The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported late on
Friday that the Federal Railroad Administration has ordered Amtrak
to modify its current signal system to guard against overspeeding at
several curves along the Northeast Corridor, including the site of
Tuesday's derailment.
 TRAIN'S SPEED RAISES QUESTIONS
Sumwalt said investigators still have no explanation for why the
train was going as fast as it was, and why it had accelerated from
70 mph to 100-plus mph in the 65 seconds before the crash, as was
shown on video footage taken by a camera mounted on the locomotive.
The engineer had slammed on the emergency breaking system seconds
before the wreck, investigators said. Sumwalt said on Friday that Bostian told them he had no recollection
of doing that, or of anything else after ringing the train's signal
bell as it rolled through the North Philadelphia station - about
midway between the 30th Street stop and the crash site.
Otherwise, Bostian reported no difficulties during what he remembers
of the run, telling investigators he did not feel fatigued or have
any illness before the accident, Sumwalt said.
He said Bostian was accompanied by his lawyer but was "extremely
cooperative" during the 90-minute interview.
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Experts said the train's speed in the moments before the crash
raised several questions: Could a technical glitch have caused the
locomotive to speed up so rapidly? Would it take a deliberate action
by the engineer? Or could human error, a medical issue, or some
other factor like clumsiness explain the sudden burst of speed?
Sumwalt said the train, as designed, can only be accelerated by
manual control, but the NTSB would examine whether a mechanical
malfunction could have caused the train to speed up on its own.
He said Bostian reported to investigators that he had experienced
technical problems on his way south to Washington from New York
earlier that day. He did not elaborate.
Bostian, he said, began his railroad career as a brakeman while in
college, joined Amtrak as a conductor in 2006 and became a
locomotive engineer in 2010. He had been on this particular route
for several weeks, driving the train from New York to Washington and
back once a day, five days a week.
Steve Sullivan, a conductor turned consultant at RL Banks and
Associates, said it was unlikely that a mechanical issue with the
locomotive caused the acceleration, though the NTSB has not ruled
out that possibility. Sullivan said he never heard of a train
accelerating without someone moving the throttle.
The throttle of the locomotive that Bostian was operating has eight
settings, with each click forward accelerating the train, said
Charles Culver, a certified conductor and engineer based in Texas
who is not connected to the investigation.
Culver said it does not take much force to move the throttle forward
and it was possible the engineer could have fallen and moved the
throttle. Passenger trains, unlike freight trains, can increase
speed rapidly, he said.
"In order to increase the speed as much as it was increased in this
case, you would have had to really, really move the throttle,"
Culver said. "Frankly, I am puzzled about the whole thing."
All engineers are required to know speed restrictions on their
routes, but Culver said it was possible the engineer lost awareness
of the train's location due to some medical condition.
Sullivan offered another possible scenario, though it was entirely
speculative: "Something distracted him. He lost focus, and he
thought he already went through the turn and that’s why he was
accelerating," the consultant said.
The engineer's attorney, Robert Goggin, has said Bostian had turned
off his cell phone, as Amtrak requires of all engineers behind the
controls.
The NTSB's Sumwalt said federal law requires transportation
personnel involved in an accident to be tested for drugs or alcohol
but it would take "some time" for those results to come back.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst and Barbara Goldberg in New
York, and David Morgan and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by
Frank McGurty and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Lisa
Shumaker, Ken Wills and Richard Borsuk)
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