regardless of what the cause of take acceleration was. so this is something that had not been implemented or at least installed on this part of the track. officials at this point, though continue their investigation here. they are looking for some key pieces of evidence and more importantly still looking for perhaps some of those that have not yet been identified. all right. thanks so much. let s talk more about that safety technology. sgerpt experts say that may have prevented this tragedy. there was a similar accident in spain two years ago when the train flew off the rails going 111 miles an hour as it headed into a turn. left 79 people dead. the same year in new york, investigators say a metro north railroad engineer fell asleep as his train sped into a sharp curve at more than 80 miles an hour, almost three times the posted speed limit. that accident left four dead. experts say technology called positive train control or ptc
a bigger check. experts insist ptc could make accidents like this a thing of the past. we feel had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would into the have not have occurred. welcome back to morning joe . we begin this hour with the deadly train derailment in philadelphia which is now being blamed for seven deaths. the search for answers is already yielding startling discoveries thanks to the black box. according to investigators train 188 was traveling more than 100 miles an hour when it derailed, more than twice the speed limit. so how does that happen? without an alarm sounding. metro north accident, over the holidays? january, yeah. january. how does that happen? very similar. we were just talking about 106 miles an hour, much faster than the acela goes, the high
about some of the signals on the track, seeing if there is any problems with the track, but more importantly they re gown loading day if a from that event recorder as well as that forward facing front camera.gownloading day if a from that event recorder as well as that forward facing front camera. that can reveal a lot. all of this could have been prevented. here is what the ntsb board member robert zumwalt had to say yesterday. we have called for positive train control for many many years. it s on our most wanted list. congress has mandated that it be installed by the end of this year. so we are very keen on positive train control. based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this session of track, this accident would not have occurred. reporter: now that system was meant to prevent this precise type of incident in the sense that if the train was going at about 100 miles per hour, as it entered that curve, it would have automatically forced the
priorities. i was disappointed to hear my colleague from new york a few minutes ago talk about the tragedy that occurred with amtrak and suggest that because we had not funded this properly, that that s with a caused the accident. when you have no idea, no idea, what caused this accident. and to use that as a means of supporting the last amendment, support it if you want to but don t use this tragedy in that way. it was beneath you. so this one was using it actually? that was the heated exchange between congressman steve israel of new york and mike simpson of idaho yesterday after the house appropriations committee voted to cut federal funding for amtrak 12 hours after the derailment. joining us now, nation editor
helps. it would have prevented this accident the ntsb said very bluntsly. because if person didn t slow down the train, the ptc would. why wouldn t it be in place on such a major stretch of track? i think the short answer is money and time. these systems are very expensive to put in. they re very complex to build. the technology is certainly there. but actually developing and installing it is taking a long time for amtrak and also for commuter railroads and for freight railroads across the country. but amtrak, you know, has been telling a lot of people for a long time that they will make the deadline. which is december 31st of this year to have all of their networks outfitted with this technology. but if you look closely it no longer really looks like that. they say they have done about 400 miles of track with ptc and they have about 1200 to go. it just doesn t look like they will make it on time.