by Our Foreign Desk

US TRAIN company Amtrak has accepted responsibility for Tuesday’s train crash in Philadelphia which killed eight people and injured 200.

Amtrak president and CEO Joe Boardman wrote on the company’s official blog that it was co-operating fully with an investigation into why the train was travelling at twice the speed limit when it derailed.

“Amtrak takes full responsibility and deeply apologises for our role in this tragic event,” he wrote.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Thursday that the Washington to New York train had sped up from 70mph, reaching more than 100mph on a curve where the speed limit was 50mph.

Board member Robert Sumwalt said it was unclear whether engineer Brandon Bostian had accelerated manually.

So far, investigators have found no problems with the track, the signals or the locomotive, and the train was running on time, Mr Sumwalt said.

Mr Bostian refused to talk to police the day after the accident but has agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB in the next few days.

The Philadelphia district attorney’s office said it is investigating and will decide whether to bring charges.

US rail union the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen national president Dennis Pierce declined to speculate on the cause of the accident but extended his members’ sympathies to the families of the dead and to the other victims of the crash.

The first funeral service for a victim of the disaster, Justin Zemser, was held yesterday morning.