Four days after a pair of Amtrak maintenance workers were killed when a train slammed into their backhoe, federal regulators have ordered the passenger rail line to conduct a thorough safety review of work-crew rules and regulations.
The mandate issued by the Federal Railroad Administration on Thursday is the strongest indication to date that investigators think that the two men would not have died in the wreck just south of Philadelphia if federal regulations had been observed.
In addition to reviewing safety rules with workers and their supervisors, the FRA also ordered Amtrak to focus on the effectiveness of communication between work crews and the dispatchers who control train movement.
