Acidente Big





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The Chase, Maryland, train wreck occurred at 1:04 p.m. on January 4, 1987, on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor main line near Chase, Maryland, at Gunpow Interlocking, about 18 miles northeast of Baltimore. Amtrak Train 94, the Colonial, from Washington, D.C., to Boston, crashed into a set of Conrail locomotives running light which had fouled the mainline. Train 94's speed at the time of the collision was estimated at about 108 mph. Fifteen passengers on the Amtrak train were killed, as well as the Amtrak engineer.

Two members of the Conrail locomotive crew tested positive for marijuana, and the engineer served four years in a Maryland prison for his role in the crash. In the aftermath, drug and alcohol procedures for train crews were overhauled by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), which is charged with rail safety. In 1991, prompted in large part by the Chase Maryland crash, the U.S. Congress took even broader action and authorized mandatory random drug-testing for all employees in "safety-sensitive" jobs in all industries regulated by the federal Department of Transportation. Additionally, all trains operating on the high-speed Northeast Corridor are now equipped with automatic cab signaling with an automatic train stop feature.

At the time, the Chase train wreck was Amtrak's deadliest crash ever. In 1993, however, the wreck at Big Bayou Canot in Alabama resulted in a much larger death toll.