Amtrak Train Derails in Florida

April 18 -- An Amtrak train carrying hundreds of passengers derailed on a popular vacation route in northern Florida this afternoon, killing at least six people, authorities said.

State police and National Transportation Safety Board officials confirmed six people were dead, and hundreds were injured, and that no motor vehicles were involved in the derailment.

Dozens of patients were being rushed to the Putnam County Medical Center, and many were being taken by the busload other hospitals farther away. Police estimated that half the 425 passengers and 28 crew members on board suffered injuries in the wreck.

The northbound Auto-Train, Amtrak train #52, was en route from Sanford, Fla., to Lorton, Va., when it ran off the rails at 5:08 pm in Seville, Fla., 44 miles north of Sanford in Volusia County, Amtrak said in a statement.

"We just started hurtling and left the track and the next thing we knew, we were bouncing off the walls," Bernie Morgan, a passenger traveling from Naples, Fla., to Doylestown, Pa., told The Associated Press.

Amtrak said the train left Sanford at 4:30 p.m. Authorities refused to speculate on the cause of the derailment. A spokeswoman for the CSX Corporation, which owns and operates the tracks, told The Florida Times-Union they had been inspected eight hours earlier, and showed no signs of damage.

Amtrak said 13 passenger cars of the 41-car train derailed. Seven of the cars were lying on their sides, and all 13 sprawled in a zig-zag across the tracks.

At one point, 75 passengers were trapped. As of early tonight, Florida Highway Patrol officials said 65 passengers were still aboard the train.

Anxious fire rescue crews and volunteers swarmed over the cars, using ladders to haul the injured out of the windows.

Some passengers were seen walking away from the train. Rescue units and trauma helicopters from several counties were called to the scene. Amtrak said it mobilized many of its employees to help with rescue efforts. The Red Cross was sending teams, and was ready to set up a shelter.