Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) wants more information from the Amtrak engineer who was at the controls of the train that derailed outside of Philadelphia earlier this month.
{mosads}Lawyers for the engineer, identified as Brandon Bostian, have said he has no memory of the incident, which left eight people dead and dozens injured. Zeldin said in a radio interview broadcast Sunday that something “does smell very fishy.”
“Some are pitching the idea of having an additional engineer up there,” he told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” in New York. “It seems like it could have quite possibility have prevented the unfortunate tragedy that happened last week, so that’s one reform.”
Zeldin, who represents a Long Island district served by the Long Island Rail Road, said Amtrak should move quickly to upgrade the safety systems that automatically slow down a train that is moving too quickly into a curve.
Amtrak safety features have become a contentious point in the political fallout of the May 12 derailment. Democrats forced a vote last Tuesday on a bill to spend $750 million on safety upgrades, but the measure failed on the House floor.
Amtrak has said the technology is operational on the southbound tracks where the derailment occurred but not the northbound tracks, and it’s currently working to get it up and running.
“Amtrak is very quickly — they should have done it sooner — putting that technology into the northbound route,” Zeldin said. “We certainly have to prevent that from ever happening again.”