Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BATAVIA, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
About 110 people were injured in the wreck, at least two seriously.
The Lake Shore Limited, bound for Chicago with 340 passengers and 20 crew members, screeched off its rails and whipsawed its rear nine passenger cars down the 20-foot embankment into the woods at about 3:45 a.m.
Members of Boy Scout Troop 114 from Southwick, Mass., helped injured passengers off the train, carried luggage for elderly people and carted a baby carriage down the tracks. One scout crawled back into a derailed car to retrieve diapers for a woman traveling with her baby.
The cause of the wreck was under investigation.
Passengers described an eerie calm as the train derailed on a straight stretch of heavily traveled Conrail track 30 miles east of Buffalo.
None of the 18 scouts, headed for New Mexico for the last leg of a 12-day hiking trip, was injured. Most were riding in one of the first six cars, which derailed but didn't go down the embankment.
Boy Scout Scott Crepeau had gone back to a rear car with a see-through roof so he could gaze at the night sky.
Skylights were smashed and seat cushions dangled out windows. The twisted tracks were littered with baby bottles and baby clothes.
John Lauber, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator at the scene, said that gouge marks suggested the wheels of at least one car were off the track three miles before the train derailed.
Preliminary estimates put the train's speed at about 75 mph, slower than the 79 mph speed limit in the area, Lauber said. The train had two locomotives and 16 passenger cars.
The tracks were inspected Tuesday and no problems were found, said Rudy Husband, a Conrail spokesman in Philadelphia. There were no recent reports of track vandalism, Husband said.
by CNB