Brandon Bostian, the engineer driving the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia Tuesday night, has no recollection of the crash itself and "no explanation" for what happened, his attorney told ABC News.The attorney for Bostian, 32, a Queens, New York, resident, confirmed his identity to ABC News, and added that Bostian voluntarily turned over a blood sample and his cell phone and is cooperating with authorities.Bostian was "very distraught" to learn of the loss of life in the crash, the attorney said, adding Bostian only remembers driving the train to the crash area generally, then later getting tossed around, coming to, finding his bag and his cell phone, and dialing 911.Bostian suffered a concussion and head wound that required 14 staples, as well as injuries to both of his legs in the crash, the attorney said -- but Bostian told the attorney he had "no health issues to speak of" before the crash and was on no medications.According to his LinkedIn profile, Bostian has worked at Amtrak for nearly nine years, the first half of which he spent as a passenger conductor before he became a passenger engineer in December 2010.Bostian initially spoke with investigators Tuesday night. He was treated at a hospital and then released and transported to the Philadelphia Police Department. He later declined to provide a formal statement to police and requested a lawyer, which he now has, officials said.What he told police or other investigators was not released, but his attorney said he was with police for at least five hours and would be available to answer additional questions. National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said the agency's go-team has not yet met with the engineer, but they "plan to.""This person has gone through a very traumatic event and we want to give him the opportunity to convalesce for a day or so before we interview him," Sumwalt said.Bostian's attorney said his client would be willing to speak to the NTSB.Sumwalt said an initial review of the train's data recorder shows that the train was going 106 mph three seconds before the recording ended, when the engineer pressed the full emergency brake application. The train was going 102 mph at the end of the recording. There is a 50 mph limit at the curve where the train derailed and a 70 mph limit for regional trains in the area preceding the curve, so the reason why the train was going so fast will be one of the biggest questions facing investigators.The engineer was one of five Amtrak employees on board the New York City-bound train when it derailed around a bend shortly after leaving a stop in Philadelphia.Seven people died in the crash and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said that more than 200 people were treated at local hospitals.The NTSB was also involved in the investigation into the December 2013 Metro North train derailment outside of New York City, where the engineer was found at fault because he dozed off and the train was going nearly three times the speed limit at the curve where the crash occurred.Four people died in that crash and approximately 60 others injured. The engineer was suspended without pay and is involved in a number of civil suits though he has not faced any criminal charges. ||||| The intersection of Wheatsheaf and Frankford Ave. on May 13, 2015. ( ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer ) 
 
 Right before the fatal derailment of Amtrak Train 188 a conductor said she believes she heard the engineer say that a window on the train had been "struck by something," National Transporation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Friday. In the agency's final briefing in Philadelphia on Tuesday night's horrific accident, Sumwalt said the FBI now was involved in the investigation of the crash that killed eight people and injured 200. The FBI confirmed that it is investigating damage to the windshield of the train but said no separate federal criminal investigation is yet under way. He said that NTSB officials interviewed engineer Brandon Bostian on Friday, and that he "cooperated fully." Bostian was accompanied by his attorney, who has said his client suffered a concussion in the crash. 
 
 Sumwalt said Bostian told investigators that the last thing he remembers is ringing a train bell as required as he went through the North Philadelphia station. He did not remember the crash. 
 
 Sumwalt said Bostian "did not feel fatigued nor did he report any illness." He said Bostian, 32, "demonstrated very good working knowledge of the territory, speed limits and things like that." Bostian drove the daily New York to Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. and back train run, Monday to Friday. 
 
 Sumwalt said that officials also had spoken with a conductor who "believes she heard her engineer say something about his train being struck by something," Sumwalt said. 
 
 "We have seen damage to the left-hand lower portion of the Amtrak windshield that we have asked the FBI to come in and look at for us," he added. He said the damage appeared in a "circular pattern that emanates out quite a bit." 
 
 Right before the crash Tuesday night at Frankford Junction, a SEPTA commuter train and another Amtrak train in the same area were hit by projectiles, one of which crashed through the SEPTA engineer's window. 
 
 The unnamed conductor told the NTSB she heard the engineer of her Amtrak train talking to the engineer of a SEPTA train about three to four minutes after leaving Philadelphia, Sumwalt said. The woman, a 39-year-old Amtrak worker, was in the fourth car - the cafe car - when she heard the radio conversation. 
 
 "She heard him talking to a SEPTA engineer who reported to a train dispatcher that he had either been hit by a rock or shot at," Sumwalt said, "and that the SEPTA engineer said he had a broken windshield and put the train into an emergency stop." 
 
 Sumwalt said the particular damage that NTSB wants the FBI to examine is the circular pattern of damage on the lower left windshield, as seen from inside the engineer's station. 
 
 He said the right-hand side of the windshield was shattered by the crash impact. 
 
 It was not known when NTSB agency would release a final report on the crash of Train 188. 
 
 Bill Shuster (R., Pa.), chairman of the house transportation committee, said Friday he planned to covene hearings on the accident. 
 
 In a statement, Amtrak president Joseph Boardman said, "Amtrak takes full responsibility, and deeply apologizes for our role in this tragic event." 
 
 Meanwhile, work to reopen the stretch of tracks where Amtrak Train 188 derailed, killing eight passengers, moved into high gear Friday, and service along one of the nation's most heavily traveled sections of rail was expected to resume Tuesday. 
 
 The Northeast Corridor is Amtrak's busiest, carrying millions of people annually, and the closure at Frankford Junction has halted Amtrak service between New York and Philadelphia and, by extension, New York and Washington. 
 
 It also has forced 12,000 daily riders who use SEPTA's Trenton Line to find alternate routes to work and has prevented NJ Transit's Atlantic City line trains from getting to and from 30th Street Station. 
 
 Officials say Train 188 had accelerated right before the crash and was speeding when it hit the sharp curve at the junction, jumping the tracks after the engineer activated the brakes. 
 
 Work is underway to replace 22 track panels along two of the four tracks at the site. Each panel is 60 feet long, Amtrak spokesman Craig Schulz said. 
 
 Crews also are installing four new catenary poles - the H-shaped steel structures that hold the overhead wires along the tracks. 
 
 "These guys have literally been working around the clock," Schulz said. 
 
 He did not have a cost estimate for the work, which also includes testing the signal and power systems. 
 
 He said crews will continue working around the clock until repairs are complete. 
 
 Against the backdrop of the work to reopen the junction and an ongoing investigation into the derailment, two dozen fire officials, police commanders and first responders gathered at City Hall to speak to about the massive city response to the crash. 
 
 The officials said it was an opportunity for the public to hear about the Herculean efforts that were undertaken to rescue wreck victims. The event began with a moment of silence for the dead and injured. 
 
 A dispatch supervisor spoke first, saying multiple calls came in from passengers on the wrecked train - who didn't know where they were. Officials used technology to identify the location of the cellphone calls. 
 
 "The people were frantic but they were also calm," said supervisor Ken Carey. "They were able to say, 'I've been in an accident, but I don't know where I am.'" 
 
 Repeated themes at the briefing were the horrifying scope of the disaster and the way the many responding agencies cooperated. 
 
 Back at the crash scene, a steady beeping of machinery and buzzing of cement trucks could be heard along Frankford Avenue on Friday morning. 
 
 Though the scene has been released back to Amtrak, it remained behind police barricades as repair work continued. 
 
 White Amtrak pickup trucks came and went from a dusty lot between two warehouses. Beyond the lot, dozens of workers in hard hats and orange vests labored along the tracks. Some later paused to paused to eat a lunch of chicken off paper plates in a parking lot along the tracks Friday afternoon. 
 
 Portable spotlights were in place for continuing work through the night. 
 
 Earlier Friday, bulldozers cleared the site where the front two cars - which were most damaged in the derailment - had crashed. Larger trucks also arrived on the site, where tents and portable toilets were set up in a staging area. 
 
 Six people injured in the derailment remained in critical condition - five at Temple University Hospital (down from six Thursday) and one at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. 
 
 Officials have said more than 200 people were injured in the crash, about 150 of whom ended up in hospitals. 
 
 At a brief news conference outside Temple University Hospital, U.S. Sen. Robert Casey said he had toured the hospital to get a sense of the challenges facilities faced as victims of the Amtrak crash poured in. 
 
 He said he was "inspired by the really miraculous work that was done here under the most horrific of circumstances." 
 
 Inquirer staff writers Stacey Burling, Paul Nussbaum, and Mari A. Schaefer contributed to this article. ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Amtrak Train 188 accelerated from 65 miles per hour to more than 100 in the last minute of its ill-fated journey. 
 
 Investigators work near the wreckage of Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 that derailed Tuesday night in Philadelphia. (Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images) 
 
 The Amtrak train that derailed and killed at least eight people sped up for about a minute before derailing at a curve in Northeast Philadelphia, the National Transportation Safety Board announced Thursday. 
 
 The engineer, Brandon Bostian, has agreed to be interviewed by NTSB investigators in the next few days, board member Robert Sumwalt said at a news briefing. Bostian, 32, of Queens, suffered a concussion and "has absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the events" Tuesday night, his lawyer said in a television interview. 
 
 In the minute or so before the crash, the train sped up from 70 mph until it reached more than 100 mph at a sharp bend where the maximum speed is supposed to be 50 mph, Sumwalt said. It's unclear, Sumwalt said, whether the speed was increased manually by Bostian. 
 
 Investigators do not know why the Washington-to-New York train accelerated heading to the curve, not long after leaving Philadelphia's 30th Street Station on time, Sumwalt said. Bostian applied the emergency brakes seconds before the derailment, slowing the train to 102 mph. 
 
 A camera on the front of the new Siemens "Cities Sprinter" locomotive recorded the speed. 
 
 Inspection records revealed nothing wrong with the track, signals or the train, he added. 
 
 Amtrak announced last night that its rail service north of New York City has been restored. Service between Washington and Philadelphia is running at modified levels, while all traffic between New York City and Philadelphia remains suspended. 
 
 Thursday morning, recovery teams found an eighth body in the twisted wreckage of the passenger car directly behind the derailed engine, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer said. 
 
 The commissioner told reporters that cadaver dogs were recalled to the area early Thursday to do one more search of the crash site. 
 
 He said the dogs were directed to the front passenger car, which was especially twisted and badly damaged, and indicated that a body was inside. He said the teams used hydraulic tools to reach the victim. 
 
 He was identified as Bob Gildersleeve, Jr., 45, a vice president for Ecolab of St. Paul, Minn. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our friend and colleague," Ecolab CEO Doug Baker said in a statement. 
 
 Even before the discovery of the latest fatality, the crash was already the deadliest U.S. train accident in nearly seven years. 
 
 More than 200 people were injured when Amtrak Train 188 jumped the track in the city's Frankford neighborhood. Officials said that 11 people remained hospitalized Thursday, six in critical condition, but that all are expected to recover. 
 
 Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter reported Thursday that all 243 people who were believed to be on the train at the time have been accounted for. 
 
 The engineer's lawyer, Robert Goggin, said his client suffered a concussion and cannot remember what happened when the train jumped the tracks. Bostian has 15 staples in his head, stitches in one leg and his other leg is immobilized, he said. 
 
 "He remembers coming into the curve. He remembers attempting to reduce speed and thereafter, he was knocked out," Goggin told ABC's Nightline on Wednesday. 
 
 Bostian, he said, "has absolutely no recollection of the incident or anything unusual" and "no explanation" for the crash. He only recalls getting thrown around, coming to, finding his bag and his cellphone, and dialing 911, Goggin said. 
 
 Bostian told him that, as required, his cellphone was off and stashed in his personal bag before the accident. He voluntarily surrendered the phone to investigators. 
 
 Goggin said Bostian was "very distraught" to learn of the loss of life in the accident. 
 
 The lawyer said his client is cooperating with authorities and has turned over a blood sample. He also said Bostian told him he had no significant health issues before the crash and was not on any medications. 
 
 (Photo: LinkedIn.com) 
 
 According to his LinkedIn profile, Bostian has worked at Amtrak since 2006, first as a passenger conductor for four years and an engineer for almost five years. 
 
 Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE While Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian has submitted a blood sample to investigators, he hasn't yet been formally interviewed by them. At least seven people were killed when the train derailed in Philadelphia. VPC 
 
 Nutter, reacting to word of the train's speed, said, "That's just insanity.'' 
 
 Nutter said he nevertheless didn't want to prejudge. "We know what happened. We don't know why." 
 
 The train's speed was captured on the recovered "black box" that records data on the operation of the train. 
 
 One safety measure that might have prevented the accident was not in operation along that stretch of track. The system is called the positive train control (PTC), which, according to Amtrak, is designed to prevent the collision of two trains, derailments caused by excessive speed and some human errors such as misaligned tracks during switching. 
 
 The system, which Amtrak in 2012 called "the most important rail safety advancement of our time" is mandated for all U.S. commuter lines by the end of the year, but had not been installed in the fatal section of the Philadelphia track. 
 
 "Had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred," said Sumwalt. 
 
 Among the dead: 
 
 •Jim Gaines, a 48-year-old Associated Press video software architect, the news agency said. Gaines had attended meetings in Washington and was returning home to Plainsboro, N.J.His death was confirmed by his wife, Jacqueline. 
 
 •U.S. Naval Academy midshipman, Justin Zemser, 21, of Queens, N.Y., his mother told NBC4 New York. The school, which declined to release the name until all of his relatives were notified, did say that the victim was on leave and on his way home. 
 
 •Abid Gilani, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, according to a company spokesperson in New York. 
 
 •Rachel Jacobs, the chief executive of a small tech company in Philadelphia, her family said Wednesday. She was the CEO of an online education consulting firm ,ApprenNet, and commuted from her home in New York City to her work in Philadelphia. She leaves behind her husband and 2-year-old son. 
 
 Contributing: Associated Press 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Hj0U2w ||||| The NTSB is expected to meet Tuesday in Washington to determine the cause of the crash. 
 
 WASHINGTON - The engineer who derailed an Amtrak train lost his bearings shortly before he accelerated into a dangerous Philadelphia curve last year, likely because he was distracted by radio talk about a SEPTA train struck by rocks, federal investigators concluded Tuesday. 
 
 Their report offered the most clear explanation yet for the May 12, 2015 crash of a New York-bound train that killed eight and injured about 200 people. 
 
 "The engineer's world is one of fallible human decisions and actions in an imperfect environment," said Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. It is one, "in which a loss of awareness can take a terrible toll." 
 
 The NTSB voted to accept the conclusion that Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian lost his "situational awareness" and sped to 106 mph shortly before entering a curve on which the speed limit was 50 mph - causing the derailment. 
 
 The NTSB concluded that Bostian likely thought he was on a stretch of track beyond the Frankford Junction curve, where the speed limit was 110 mph. 
 
 He "went in a matter of seconds from distraction to disaster," said NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt. He called it "a very basic error." 
 
 The nearly three-hour NTSB hearing covered the actions of the engineer, structural weaknesses in the train cars that may have contributed to the injuries and deaths, and communications issues among emergency responders that overburdened some Philadelphia hospitals with patients. 
 
 The board also said the incident, and others like it, show the urgent need to install an upgraded rail safety system, Positive Train Control, throughout the country. Amtrak has done so along all of the Northeast Corridor tracks it controls, but most rail lines have lagged. 
 
 "The government and industry have not acted for decades on a well-known safety hazard," said Bella Dinh-Zarr, the NTSB board's vice-chair. 
 
 Bostian's lawyer, Robert Goggin, did not respond to a call for comment Tuesday. 
 
 The engineer has told the NTSB he could not remember the specifics of why he accelerated - investigators said head injuries can lead to amnesia - but the board surmised from its interviews with Bostian that concern about the SEPTA train and its shattered windshield was the most likely distraction. 
 
 For six minutes after train 188 left 30th Street Station, Bostian closely monitored about two dozen radio messages about the incident, the location of the disabled train and whether the engineer needed medical attention, NTSB investigator Steve Jenner said. 
 
 The NTSB said he lost situational awareness - a term used by engineers and pilots referring to where they are, what's happening around them, and what comes next. 
 
 An engineer who loses that focus, "may forget to take action when it is time to do so," said Steve Jenner, an NTSB investigator. In talking to investigators, Bostian did not describe the incident as something that had fractured his attention. 
 
 But Hart said, "oftentimes the one who is lacking situational awareness is the last to know it." 
 
 The NTSB found no prior concerns in Bostian's record or training. One investigator called him qualified and experienced. 
 
 Rail engineers take pride in memorizing their routes - if one was blindfolded and left at a particular location, he or she could quickly identify it, and the appropriate speed limit, NTSB staffers said. 
 
 But that reliance on memory, said investigator Ted Turpin, means "once you get lost, then you're in trouble." 
 
 Thomas Kline and Robert Mongeluzzi, attorneys who are representing 32 injured passengers, criticized the NTSB's conclusions and contended its investigators had failed to ask him hard questions during two interviews last year. 
 
 "The one thing that we know that is not supposition, that is not speculation, is that he was going 106 mph in a 50 mph curve," Mongeluzzi said. "He may have lacked situational awareness but he didn't lack situational awareness after the accident when the police wanted to question him and he lawyered up and refused to answer their questions." 
 
 Added Kline, "There is no doubt in our minds that the conduct of Brandon Bostian on that fateful night was reckless. The conclusion that there was situational unawareness and that he may have somehow have lost his way is truly rank speculation." 
 
 NTSB investigators said that the structure of the train cars themselves contributed to the human toll. As the train cars toppled and skidded on their sides, their windows didn't hold. Four passengers died after ejecting through the windows. 
 
 The information gathered in the wreckage and from passengers described everything thrown in violent motion as the train derailed. The force hurtled people, luggage and seats freely about the cars, which contributed to many of the 46 serious injuries, said Dana Sanzo, one of the investigators. 
 
 Train cars are built to protect passengers from being propelled forward, Sanzo said, but don't protect against lateral motion. Investigators recommended train designs take lateral motion into account and take steps to secure baggage. They also recommended a federal study to evaluate whether seat belts can make trains safer. 
 
 Amtrak's CEO Joseph Boardman said he supported the NTSB recommendations and said the rail agency would implement them. 
 
 The board stressed how preventable the derailment would have been, had a remote safety system, Positive Train Control (PTC), been in place. The system, sought for decades by the NTSB, can slow or stop speeding trains. Since 2008, 37 people have been killed in accidents that could have been avoided if PTC had been in place. 
 
 While Amtrak has now installed it along all but 56 miles of the Northeast Corridor, including the stretch where this crash occurred, progress has been scant elsewhere and last year Congress gave railroads even more time - until 2018 - to install the system on major freight and passenger lines nationwide. Extensions are also possible under the new law. 
 
 Originally railroads were mandated to have PTC in place by the end of last year. 
 
 Hart, the board chairman, called on them to act faster. 
 
 "The deadline that really matters is not 2018, and it is not some later date made possible by an additional extension," he said. "The deadline that really matters is the date of the next PTC-preventable tragedy." 
 
 Staff writer Chris Mondics contributed to this article. 
 
 jlaughlin@phillynews.com 
 
 @JasmLaughlin 
 
 www.philly.com/intransit
– The Amtrak train in Tuesday night's deadly crash was going the speed limit until just before the derailment, when it mysteriously sped up when it should have slowed down, according to National Transportation Safety Board investigators. NTSB member Robert Sumwalt says that in the space of around a minute, the train's speed jumped from 70mph to 102mph, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Sumwalt says it's not clear whether engineer Brandon Bostian—who was concussed and has "no explanation" for the derailment—accelerated manually. Sumwalt says inspection records haven't revealed any problems with the track, signals, or the Siemens "Cities Sprinter" locomotive itself, reports USA Today. Bostian has told investigators he has no memory of the crash or of engaging the emergency brake, but Sumwalt says he did so seconds before the derailment, CNN reports. He says the engineer, who's recovering from multiple injuries, has agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB and will be allowed to have a lawyer present. The "positive train control" system that could have prevented the crash was just months away from becoming a reality in the Northeast Corridor, reports the New York Times. John Boehner called a question about funding cuts contributing to the crash "stupid" yesterday, but funding problems did contribute to the delay, the Times reports. The train—and the tracks—were already equipped with the system, but it took four years to buy the rights to airwaves to switch it on. An eighth victim was found by a cadaver dog yesterday. Like many other victims, Ecolab exec Bob Gildersleeve, 45, was on his way home to his family. When he didn't make it home on Tuesday, his wife and two teenagers traveled to Philadelphia to search hospitals for him, NBC Philadelphia reports. Though there are still many questions surrounding the crash—especially the increase in speed—Amtrak says it takes full responsibility for it, the AP reports. "With truly heavy hearts, we mourn those who died. Their loss leaves holes in the lives of their families and communities," CEO Joseph Boardman said in a statement. "Amtrak takes full responsibility and deeply apologizes for our role in this tragic event." Amtrak says full service between New York and Philadelphia should resume early next week.