News Digest

For Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian, childhood dream ends in tragedy

Operating trains was a childhood dream come true for the man at the helm of Amtrak Train 188 when it derailed Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Brandon Bostian, 32, who grew up in Memphis, always wanted to be a railroad engineer and live in New York City, according to his friends. With a career at Amtrak and an apartment in Queens, N.Y., the locomotive-obsessed man was living his dream until the train he was helming tragically jumped the track at 106 mph — killing eight people and injuring scores of others. To become a railroad engineer, one needs a high school diploma or equivalent, a license from the Federal Railroad Administration and the completion of a company-sponsored training program. A railroad safety consultant told Yahoo News that Bostian would have had to go through rigorous training.

When you heard the name Brandon Bostian, the first thing you would think is trains. His walls were covered with pictures; he had several model sets. Sometimes we’d just go down to the tracks that ran through town and watch trains and shoot the breeze.

Lee Allen, one of Bostian’s close friends from adolescence, told the New York Times

Bostian got his first job with Amtrak as a conductor in July 2006 and was promoted to engineer in December 2010. Over the years, Bostian has reportedly been critical of the railroad industry for not implementing technological safeguards against human error. According to CNN, he advocated for this technology, known as positive train control, on a railroad fan site called TrainOrders.com. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are looking into why the train was racing more than double the speed limit. Bostian has agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB with his attorney, Robert Goggin, present.

I don’t think there’s any foul play or anything like that. He was never one to do drugs. There’s got to be something else going on that nobody knows about yet.

James Weir, a friend of Bostian, told WREG