It was a terrible train crash! Amtrak Northeast Regional 188 was en route from Washington, D. C., to New York City, when around 9:30 p.m. on May 12, 2015, it suddenly flew off the rails, killing eight people and injuring about 200 others. The second car was mangled almost beyond recognition. Six other cars derailed and three landed on their sides. As the cars slid on their sides, emergency windows became dislodged, allowing some passengers to be ejected from the train. One resident nearby said that the crash felt like “a mild earthquake,” and another said that it “sounded like a bomb.”
The wreck occurred 11 minutes after leaving the 30th Street Penn Station in Philadelphia. As it approached one of the sharpest curves in the Northeast Corridor, it was travelling at a speed of 106 mph, as it went into the 50 mph curve.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that “the probable cause of the accident was the engineer’s acceleration to 106 mph as he entered a curve with a 50 mph speed restriction due to his loss of situational awareness because his attention was diverted to an emergency situation with another train.”
Apparently, he had become distracted by radio chatter between another commuter train and dispatchers. A SEPTA train had been hit by a rock and was in an emergency stop. The safety board reported that during seven to nine of the 11 minutes before the crash, the engineer listened to and participated in about two dozen radio transmissions. Due to this level of distraction, they believe that the engineer thought that he was past the curve, where the speed limit opened up to 110 mph. “He went, in a matter of seconds, from distraction to disaster,” said Robert Sumwalt, the lead NTSB investigator.
An Even More Dangerous Distraction
We are all similar to Amtrak 188. We are speeding through life at an incredibly rapid pace. None of us knows when, where or how we will be ushered into eternity. “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:1414Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (James 4:14)). As we speed through life, Satan does everything in his power to distract us from receiving the gospel of salvation. It was not drugs, alcohol, or talking or texting on his cell phone that distracted the engineer of Amtrak 188, but radio chatter. Satan will use whatever it takes — sports, business, politics, pleasure or just plain everyday living to keep us from even thinking of spiritual things and of our eternal well-being. It is his aim to keep man in a continual state of “loss of situational awareness.” “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Pay attention! Right now, while you are able, seriously consider which track you are on — the track that leads to heaven or the track that leads to hell. It is certain that you are on either one or the other — the Bible puts it this way: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-1413Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13‑14)).
Though the engineer’s distraction was the main cause of the wreck, another contributing factor was the absence of a backup safety system called positive train control, or PTC. This safety system is designed to automatically slow or even stop a speeding train regardless of the engineer’s input.
The Bible, God’s Holy Word, is our “positive train control.” It tells us how to get on the right track to heaven and eternal life: “Testifying ... repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:2121Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21)). Have you repented of your sins before a righteous and holy God by asking Him to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness? God gave His only Son to die and shed His blood on the cross for our sins. “Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” means to simply trust Him for the finished work done on Calvary’s cross. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)).
The Great Mystery presents a vital lesson from a very different train experience.