Fatal Olympia, Washington Train Derailment

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At least three people were killed Monday morning when an Amtrak train derailed and fell off a bridge over Interstate 5 near Mounts Road between Lakewood and Olympia.

Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told news media that there were fatalities on the train and that motorists had been injured, but not killed. The extent of the injuries is not yet known.

There were 78 passengers and five crew members on the train when it derailed, according to Amtrak.

The southbound lanes of Interstate 5 were completely blocked by the train.

Chris Thomas, spokesman for Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, said the hospital had received about a dozen patients as of 9:25 a.m.

“We’ve had three critical patients out of about a dozen that we’ve received so far,” Thomas said.

As the wreck occurred between Olympia and Tacoma, emergency medical responders were transporting patients to various area hospitals, he said.

Amtrak tweeted that it was train No. 501 on an inaugural run, which left Seattle for Portland at 6 a.m., that derailed.

According to WSDOT, the train was running down a new bypass created to avoid slow curves and “single track tunnels on the BNSF Railway main line tracks near Point Defiance and along southern Puget Sound.”

The project rerouted passenger trains to an inland route on an existing rail line that runs along the west side of I-5 through south Tacoma, Lakewood and DuPont and then reconnects back to the BNSF Railway main line near Nisqually on the east side
of I-5.

Monday morning was the first time Amtrak trains used the new Point Defiance Bypass route. It was the culmination of a $181 million project that began in 2010. A new Amtrak station also opened in Tacoma. The change would reduce the length of the trip by 10 minutes and separate Amtrak trains from freight lines that frequently cause delays on the Point Defiance route.

Benjamin Gran was a train enthusiast, a beloved son and an autism success story. He was also a registered sex offender, having served nearly two years in federal prison for child pornography crimes.

Much was made at SeattlePI and elsewhere of Gran's criminal history in the hours after the 40-year-old's identity was released

Daniels described Gran as her “autistic, but awesomely autistic son” who loved trains. Gran, she said, “was an Amtrak fan to the max.”

"He lived, breathed Amtrak since he was 2," Daniels said by email.

His death came six years after child pornography investigators arrived at his door. Gran, who was caught in an investigation into an online forum dedicated to promoting the sexual abuse of children, served a 18 months of a federal prison term after he was caught with a collection of child pornography videos.

Agents visited Gran’s home in July 2011 after investigation launched in the Netherlands targeting “boylovers” identified him as a member of a pedophile group online. Dutch police and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched the investigation – dubbed “Operation Rescue” – in 2009 aimed at bringing down the forum. Investigators had by then arrested 12 suspected child abusers and rescued 100 children.

Robert Mikelsons, a Dutch man at the center of the ring and a fellow supporter of the movement to legitimize the sexual abuse of children, had corresponded with Gran directly as early as 2004, according to court papers. Mikelsons and the other forum members asserted molestation was healthy for the children they hurt.

Court papers that would describe Gran more completely remain sealed.

Gran was ultimately sentenced to two years in prison and placed under court supervision for the rest of his life. He was released from federal prison in 2015.

Before his death, he had been working as an accountant for a medical organization related to autism care.

The National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said it was unclear why the train had been traveling 80 mph in a 30-mph zone.

— The emergency brake appeared to have been automatically activated, rather than by the engineer during the accident, Dinh-Zarr said.

— Two people had been in the cab in the front locomotive during the crash, she said. The engineer was joined by a conductor who was learning the new route, she said. Amtrak’s Anderson said that is not unusual.

— The engineer had been on this stretch of track before, NTSB lead accident investigator Ted Turpin said. Investigators don’t yet know how many hours of previous travel that involved.

— Data recorders from the front and rear locomotives have been recovered, Dinh-Zarr said. Cameras from the train were damaged and have been sent to Washington, DC to see whether video can be retrieved.