MSNBC "The Ed Show"- Transcript: Amtrak Derailment
Interview
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Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania joins me now. He is a -- for the
purposes of this conversation, a regular Amtrak commuter on the northeast
corridor...
REP. BRENDAN BOYLE, (D) PENNSYLVANIA: Yes.
MELVIN: The Congressman also just toured the site of the incident today, I
understand.
Congressman, first of all, just your initial impressions of what you saw.
BOYLE: Well, the first impression i -- so I left voting here yesterday
Hampton Amtrak to go back home to Philadelphia and see the site before
coming back here on Amtrak this morning.
And I have to say that seeing it in-person is quite different than
television. First, it just a much bigger area, site from the first car to
the last. Then, it appears on TV that`s the first thing.
Then, the second thing is just how mangled those cars are especially cars
1, 2 and 3. It`s hard to believe at that scene frankly that there weren`t
more casualties. So it`s hard to believe that we saw effectively in law
enforcement and emergency personnel so effectively, got too many people to
safety.
MELVIN: Let`s talk a little bit about this positive train control
technology. Do you think that that technology would have prevented this
accident?
BOYLE: Well, more importantly than I may think, the NTSB official that led
me on the tour around this time yesterday, of the site said, "Flat out, if
the PTC system had been in there, this would have been prevented."
So obviously part of this was human that appears obviously was human cause
in terms of someone going 106 miles per hour and the speed limit was
literally half of that. But knowing that we actually have a safety system
that if in place, this would have been prevented and we wouldn`t have these
eight deaths and 200 people injured. It really is angering to be there on
the site and to hear that straight up from the safety experts.
MELVIN: You know, anytime there`s an accident like this or I should say
most times there is an accident like this. You know, there`s the big train
accident not far from here in Connecticut, the Metro-North accident...
BOYLE: Right.
MELVIN: ... there had been some other accidents over the past years. And
any time, it seems as if any time there`s one of these major accidents
where there`s lost of life. There`s this renewed conversation on
infrastructures spending, that happened again this time. Is the reason to
believe that this time it`s going to different, that we are going to start
spending more on our roads, in our bridges, in our rails in this country?
BOYLE: I certainly hope so. You know, if you look back at the last 30
years, the evidence is a sort of mix. 1987 was the last time there is a
major incident on the northeast corridor, last time there is a derailement
and that didn`t lead actually to safety improvement and Congress passing a
bill that took effect in 1988 and approve the system.
You know, at the same time, we had incident that you reference that
happened in New York another in Connecticut, another one in California,
actually it sort of similar situation not too long ago, and nothing has
happened in light of those things.
So it`s a shame that it even takes...
MELVIN: Why is that? Why is that?
BOYLE: It`s frustrating frankly. And -- it`s a tough situation because
you don`t want to be seen politicizing something, but it is a fact that if
spent more money on this, that line would have had the PTC and this tragedy
wouldn`t have happened.
So in the end, it really does come down to priorities, are we willing to
spend the money on this, we`re not. There are many of us on the Democratic
side as well as some suburban Republicans from the northeast, who are
willing to make these investments. Unfortunately, in this Congress we are
on the minority.
MELVIN: Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle, Congressman, thank you so
much for you tonight.
BOYLE: All right. Thank you.
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