Page 7 - Train 501 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

On this morning's incident. we do know as tom pointed out this is a commuter train. a lot of excitement going into this first service going from north to south on this cascades line. train 501. >> alex, were you on the train when it derailed or had you gotten off? >> reporter: it's one of the craziest moments of my life. we got off ten minutes before. we got off at tacoma, washington. about 10, 15 minutes after we got off, the train we were on derailed.

Direction. we are getting more information as the minutes go by here. what we see is this is the cascades line going from seattle to portland. train 501. multiple injuries and casualties reported. we do not have those numbers yet but the local medical center is taking in the injured. we expect to hear from the hospital very soon. >> we don't know how many people were on the train or how many cars were involved? >> reporter: we do not have an official count on how many people were on that train this morning. it was celebratory first outing of this service. folks were excited to be riding this t...

Of massive damage in the area. it looks like we're getting some more information now. >> the people that were in all the vehicles, even though when you see the pictures, nobody in any of the vehicles are a fatal. the fatales are all contained to the train. what caused it to derail will be up to the ntsb. southbound i-5 is completely closed and will be for some time. >> was there any traffic on the rails before that, around that time? >> we don't know anything when it comes to the rails yet. what you're seeing is what it is. on the other side of that bridge, there's three or four more cars that...

Guests that we have had on or reports we've seen online. we in no way no exactly what happened. these are the reports that we're seeing right now to try to figure out how on this maiden voyage this could have happened to this train. >> jon: it would fit, melissa, that on a maiden voyage, this is a a big deal for amtrak. they spent $800 million, almost a billion dollars getting ready for this day and it would fit that they would have, you know, kind of a p.r. person on board the train trying to drum up the excitement. that's apparently the person who first put out the word or one of the people ...

Shape. that requires additional inspections and it also requires that the track is up to a certain standard that can support what will be riding on those rails so it will be a part of investigation. >> do you know anything about the kind of equipment on this train? >> i don't. i'm just learning about this event like you are. certainly the first day of service there's going to be a lot of things to look at when it comes to this investigation. we try to understand what's going on and amtrak is operating over other people's blinds and making sure the work to start this line with that infrastructu...