Chicago-Bound Amtrak train derails in Missouri with 243 passengers aboard

A Chicago-bound Amtrak train with 243 passengers and 12 crew members onboard reportedly crashed today (Monday, June 27, 2022) into a dump truck in Mendon, Missouri, about 80 miles northwest of Columbia, derailing eight cars and two locomotives.

It is being reported that several people have been killed and dozens injured in that derailment in central Missouri.

Photos taken by people at the scene are eerily similar to those of the Sept. 25, 2021 derailment in Montana when an Amtrak train derailed eight cars, causing passengers and crew to climb out of broken windows as the train cars laid on their sides.

Clifford Law Offices represents 42 passengers on that train in litigation pending in federal district court in Montana, the largest number of any firm in the country.

The firm, highly experienced in this area, also represented the largest number of passengers in the 2017 Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, Washington, that left three people dead and 60 injured there.

The firm tried the first case in federal district court there and obtained a $16.75 million verdict in 2019.

Local emergency personnel immediately headed to the scene of the latest derailment of the Southwest Chief Train No. 4 that started in Los Angeles, California, before making many stops including Flagstaff, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Kansas City and Topeka, Mo., before heading to Galesburg, Princeton, Mendota and Naperville, Illinois, with its final stop in downtown Chicago expected about 6 p.m.

An Amtrak team also reportedly was deployed to the scene of today’s derailment. This derailment is the second in two days, with another Amtrak train killing three and injuring two others, including a child, when it struck a vehicle in Brentwood, California.

“The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will be sending out a go-team to the scene,” said Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago.

“The families here are going to want answers and the experts there will examine every aspect of what occurred in yet another rail tragedy. The speed of the train, who was at the controls, weather issues, signals, tracks, engineering – all will be examined by the NTSB.”

If you or a loved one have suffered in an Amtrak derailment or a train crash, please contact Clifford Law Offices at 312-899-9090. For more information visit: www.CliffordLaw.com

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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