ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the Pacific Northwest, an Amtrak passenger train jumped the rails this morning south of Seattle. The website Broadcastify captured excerpts of the communication between a train engineer and a dispatch operator just moments after the accident.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: Amtrak 501, emergency, emergency, emergency - we are on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR: OK (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED ENGINEER: We need EMS ASAP. It looks like they're already starting to show up.
SHAPIRO: Washington State Patrol says at least 3 people have died. Many others are injured. The train was on the inaugural run of the new high-speed rail line between Seattle and Portland. Reporter Austin Jenkins of the Northwest News Network joined us from near the accident site, and I asked him to describe the scene.
AUSTIN JENKINS, BYLINE: Well, it's a very dramatic scene. I mean, we're standing on an overpass on Interstate 5, looking south at this railroad bridge overpass. And there are train cars hanging from that railroad bridge onto the freeway below. There's actually a rail car that's landed on the freeway. This was during morning rush hour. It's just an absolute mess and a dramatic scene over this four-lane interstate where these trains are just - these train cars now are just sitting or hanging off the tracks.
SHAPIRO: What details have authorities given about how this happened?
JENKINS: Well, they really don't know. I mean, as you mentioned - that this is this new high-speed rail corridor. The train was coming down the tracks. It appears that it came around a corner onto this bridge over Interstate 5, and that's where the derailment happened. We know that - we've been told that there were 12 passenger cars plus two engines, that all but one of those derailed, 77 passengers onboard with crewmembers.
We do know there were fatalities. The number has not been confirmed - many serious injuries. And there were also cars on the freeway. This morning rush hour, so they're driving south, and there were at least five cars and two semis that were tangled up in this as the trains fell from that bridge top.
SHAPIRO: And as we said, this was the inaugural run of this new line. Tell us about that.
JENKINS: Right there was - as we understand it, the train originated out of Seattle, was heading to Portland. The train's able to sustain speeds more in the 70- to 80-mile-an-hour range. I talked to another reporter who was onboard from Seattle to Tacoma who said there were dignitaries onboard, rail buffs as well as people who were just trying to commute south today. And they got through Tacoma.
They got south of Tacoma, and they came into this area just before the Nisqually River Delta. It's kind of a wooded area. They come around the corner, and they derail apparently at high speed. It looks like the train cars might have fallen 20 feet onto the highway when this happened. And it was, you know, absolutely not the ending that they were expecting for this inaugural run today.
SHAPIRO: Elsewhere on the program, we're going to hear from a passenger who was on the train as it derailed. What can you tell us about how this is going to be investigated?
JENKINS: Well, we do know that the National Transportation Safety Board is launching a Go Team. Those investigators will start arriving, we've been told, this afternoon into this evening. For the - you know, this is an Amtrak train. They're on something called the Sound Transit, which is a regional carrier. It's their rail lines. And then of course the interstate - and this is the major north-south thoroughfare through Washington state up and down the West Coast - shut down. The southbound lanes are for the moment, so there's a transportation implication here as well as an investigation. We're hearing that the freeway may be closed for many hours, if not for the next day or so while they investigate and clean up here.
SHAPIRO: That's reporter Austin Jenkins with the Northwest News Network bringing us the latest on the train derailment in Washington state. Thanks very much, Austin.
JENKINS: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.