Amtrak 49 Derailment in Batavia, NY - 8/3/94 - Pt. 1

[WaitWhatWasThat1]

Where in batavia was this?

[fooshelf]

@WaitWhatWasThat1 It happened in the town of batavia in between Rose rd and wortendyke, or somewhere near there.

[Smokewraith]

I remember this, I was driving to work that morning and they stopped us at Wortendyke. Thankfully noone was killed. thanks for posting these.

[slervag]

I spent 8 days in hospital after beeing a passenger on this train... What a vacation... :-)

[sasilv1129]

Glad you eventually ended up okay. What a terrible experience.

[jfsa380]

@slervag why'd it jump?

[slervag]

@jfsa380 Don't know. I don't have any information why it happened except waht I'm reading here....

[krossbow13]

I might add, that I fared far better than a lot of people on that wreck. I was truly surprised when I'd heard there were no fatalities. Looking at it in the video, pales in comparison to living it, and the video itself, makes this wreck look rough. Thanks again, Scott.

[krossbow13]

Really appreciate the video footage. I was also on that train. I was in the smoking/drinking car. The last car to stay 'on' the tracks. Was a really interesting experience for me. I'm glad I was in well enough condition to help people get out of the cars that were down in the gully. I had a disposable camera, that I used entirely to take pictures of the wreck. None of the pictures turned out. It's great to see good footage of the incident, and bring back so many memories, some good. Some, bad.

[amtrakrailfan]

Wow i bet this was very scary and when did they get ride of the horizontal fleet for the amfleet?

[sasilv1129]

They got rid of the heritage coaches on the Lake Shore Limited around a year or so after this derailment occurred in favor of Amfleet II coaches.

[1985MANAmericana]

There was an effort in the late 1980s to make the Lake Shore all Amfleet II, but that didn't work out due to the Meteor going Amfleet, and thus causing a shortage of the IIs.

[kaiebeau]

thanks for sharing this video. I was in the dome car when it flipped off the tracks. I've only been on a train once since then and I'll never get on a train again. I never heard what the actual cause of the derailment was.

[sasilv1129]

You're welcome. What a horrible experience that must have been for you. I'm glad that you at least made it out okay. The link to the NTSB investigation regarding the cause of the derailment is at the bottom of my information page for this video.

[EdWittenable]

@sasilv1129 That link no longer works.

[lexmarks567]

it was caused by a flattened rail head. back then the FRA did not know how to deal with it

[howardkevinm]

excessive heat flatted out the rails and the cars simply slipped off the rain because the flanged wheels couldnt grip the track as the head was flat

[TEMPLE7D]

@howardkevinm according to the NTSB report... the baggage car's trucks were reassembled wrong... causing the car to "tilt".. also the tracks had lots of lumps and humps due to fast and heavy freight trains.

[GeorgieWise]

Amazing video from Batavia, New York "The Community of Opportunity". This must have been headline news in The Batavia Daily News for weeks. Thanks for posting it.

[Durken316]

another derialment happend a couple hundred yards away from my dads work, a tow truck had to put it back on its rails

[pea8vey]

thanks for sharing this video i live in batavia and i never saw the footage like this

[tjbarrett96]

Me too!

[stuntedcards]

they actually let you film all this without kicking you out? amazing

[RCdash9]

No, the guy's father worked for a local TV crew and some of this footage could've been on the local news.

[Bigkarch]

man this is very scary.

[furryfurball1221]

holy shit