Engineer blamed for 2007 Amtrak crash

The collision of an Amtrak train and a freight train in 2007 that injured 71 is being blamed on the passenger train's engineer.

The National Transportation Safety Board says the Amtrak engineer failed to correctly heed a signal warning him to slow down and alerting him to the Norfolk Southern freight train stopped ahead.

During a Tuesday hearing in Washington, the NTSB faulted Amtrak for failing to make sure the engineer was trained to understand the signals used on the routes he worked. The agency also said the relief engineer failed to tell the engineer that he had misread the signal

The Amtrak train from Grand Rapids, Mich. was traveling 25 miles an hour faster than the warning signal allowed when it plowed into the rear of the freight train on Chicago's South Side.