not being paid. >> any idea when investigators may officially declare the cause of this crash? >> reporter: jake, it could be as much as a year. typically that's how long it takes investigators. there will probably be more preliminary finalings along the way but that's what we hear. it could be as long as a year. jake? >> and something we all learned about you today. you know what it is like the personally survive a train wreck? you survived a crash very similar to this one back in 1984. describe for us what it was like. >> reporter: there are surprising similarities to me, knowing the details we have now. the train i was on was an overnight sleeper. i was in a tiny carriage which programs addresses some of the questions about seatbelts on trains. i didn't have -- i had only a small distance to fall. the train was going too fast. i could feel it. we were trying to go, the driver was trying to go 90 miles an hour around a 50-mile-an-hour