Amtrak Train Was Going 100 MPH Just Before It Derailed: NTSB

Amtrak train 188 was traveling more than 100 mph just before it derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, killing eight people and sending more than 200 to hospitals, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed, providing what could be an early clue into a possible cause for the deadly crash.

In a message posted to Twitter, the NTSB confirmed that its preliminary data shows the train was traveling at that speed. "Further calibrations are being conducted," the tweet said.

An analysis by the Associated Press of video shot just before Amtrak crash, meanwhile, indicated the train was going about 107 mph as it neared the curve. 

[NATL] Dramatic Images: Amtrak Train Derails in Philadelphia

The train, bound for New York from Washington, left the tracks at a curve where the speed limit drops from 80 mph to 50.

The new details on the train's speed emerged as National Transportation Safety Board investigators turned Wednesday to the train's event data recorder, also known as its "black box," as an early clue as to what caused the crash.

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Google Maps and NBC

It's still unclear what caused the train to derail. There is no evidence indicating the crash was anything other than an accident, authorities say.

The train's engineer has already met with investigators, while its conductor, whose skull was fractured in the crash, was undergoing surgery Wednesday at Albert Einstein Medical Center, police said.

The stretch of tracks in the northeastern suburban Port Richmond neighborhood where the train derailed isn't equipped with positive train control, or PTC — the GPS technology designed to slow or stop a train and avoid over-speed derailments and other accidents.

Major rail lines are required by a 2008 law to install that technology by the end of this year, and is already installed on several stretches of the Northeast Corridor line on which Amtrak train 188 derailed — one in Maryland, one in New Jersey and one between New Haven, Connecticut, and Boston.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the latest derailment could show the importance of spreading that technology.

"There are strong indications that the train was traveling far too fast - some reports say as rapidly as 100 m.p.h. in a 50 m.p.h. zone. If substantiated by a thorough investigation, this fact would argue powerfully for immediate, urgent progress on critical life-saving technology like Positive Train Control (PTC), which prevents trains from speeding. Delaying PTC only leads to preventable and predictable tragedy," he said in a statement.

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