Amtrak 188 Crash
Our team had been scraping Amtrak train data for several weeks before the crash for a different project. When 188 derailed, we knew the train’s speed was in our dataset.
I served as graphics editor for the story.
We compared 188’s speed against the posted speed limits and the speed of other trains in the months leading up to the crash.
As a result of this fortunate head start, we beat all other news outlets, including The New York Times, in publishing a story showing that speed was a factor in the crash, including the exact speed 188 was traveling (106 mph!), which was twice the posted speed and twice as fast as any other train in recent weeks.
I include the story here to show that it pays to preemptively build raw datasets if you’re interested in a beat. You never know when it might come in handy!
Our story was the most viewed on the website for the year and received the Best Use of Data in a Breaking News Story (within the first 36 hours) Data Journalism Award from the Global Editors Network in 2016.
Unfortunately, Al Jazeera took down the Al Jazeera America website, so all that remains is a link to the version of the story on the Wayback Machine. As a result, the interactive maps don’t display all the information or work as expected.
Click the button below to view the archived story.