Two killed, 35 hurt when Amtrak train hits backhoe on tracks in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — Two people died and 35 were injured Sunday when an Amtrak train struck a maintenance vehicle on the Northeast Corridor tracks in Chester, Pa., rail officials said.

The collision suspended Amtrak service between Philadelphia and Washington.

Officials said Amtrak Train 89, traveling from New York to Savannah, Ga., struck a backhoe that was on the tracks around 8 a.m., causing the lead engine of the train to derail. The two people killed were Amtrak employees, said Aigner Cleveland, spokeswoman for Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland. They were on or near the maintenance vehicle when struck, said Ruth Miller, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. No passengers were killed, and none of the 35 hurt had life-threatening injuries. The train was probably moving about 110 mph at the time of the crash, authorities said.

Amtrak officials, at a news conference, declined to comment on why one of their vehicles was on the track while trains were traveling the route. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which leases parts of Amtrak's rail system, had been told about track work on that stretch of rail, spokesman Andrew Busch said, but were told the maintenance wouldn't cause any service disruptions.

According to Amtrak, there were 341 passengers and 7 crew members on board. SEPTA buses took passengers to nearby Wilmington.

In Wilmington, customers swamped a Greyhound station across the street from the train station as word spread about the crash. Travelers piled into Uber cars with strangers, looking to share the costs of a trip to their destinations.

Former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes was also a passenger on the train, but was unhurt, according to C-SPAN.

The crash comes less than a year after a May 12 derailment in Philadelphia that killed eight people and injured hundreds. Another Amtrak train derailed March 14 near Dodge City, Kan. No one died in that accident.