Transportation

The Debate Over Rail Safety May Never Be the Same

It’s time for Congress to think about infrastructure spending in a more urgent light.
An aerial photo of the wreckage from Amtrak Train 188. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

After the last wrecked passenger cars were removed from the scene of Tuesday night’s Amtrak accident in Philadelphia, service along the Northeast Corridor returned to something like normal over the weekend. As of today, service is fully restored, and there are regular trains traveling between New York and Philadelphia.

Investigators have yet to discover what exactly led the engineer to approach a curve at high speeds. But even after the National Transportation Safety Board examines every piece of evidence, the debate over rail safety is unlikely to ever again be what it was one week ago.