High Speed Fingered as Cause of Train Derailment

By Steve Kupferman

Several news outlets are reporting that investigators with the Transportation Safety Board have determined that Sunday’s VIA train derailment near Burlington, which killed three engineers and injured many passengers, was caused by “excessive high speed.” Investigators say that data in the train’s black box (a recording device that logs trip data) indicates that it was traveling at 67 miles per hour while changing tracks, whereas the speed limit for that procedure is 15 miles per hour.