Death of Barack Obama
From Usgovsimulation
The bright fall day began rather inauspiciously, but before the sun set, it became clear to most Americans and indeed the world, that the date would join the company of November 22, 1963, September 11, 2001, and December 7, 1941. The memory of what one was doing at the very instant the horrible news broke was forever and indelibly etched into the memories of countless millions of Americans.
The Amtrak Acela Express was slated to depart Wilmington, Delaware early that morning bound for stops at historic Penn Station in Baltimore and ultimately Union Station in Washington, DC. But this was to be no ordinary commuter trip from the suburbs.
Joe Biden, himself a frequent passenger of the service was originally slated to make the two hour trip from Wilmington to the Capitol after a carefully staged press event marking the first anniversary of the passage of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Biden’s resignation some three days earlier in the wake of looming federal income tax evasion charges cinched his absence, but this was not a matter of perfunctory importance to the Obama administration. The Rail Safety Improvement Act appropriated some $2.8 billion to fund continued Amtrak operations through 2012, but a nation in recession and increasing fuel costs contributed to the passenger line bleeding cash despite increasing ridership. It was patently clear to the President that a stopgap funding package was necessary to keep Amtrak afloat. Not surprisingly, Obama seized the opportunity to make the trip himself.
Aside from the VIP-laden passenger manifest, press presence and a handful of very carefully screened "average" commuters, the trip was uneventful thus far and the Acela Express was on time as it approached Baltimore at 60 miles per hour. NTSB investigators would later trace the problem to the deadly combination of a ruptured master air brake line and a faulty low pressure alarm relay switch on the locomotive.
At Penn Station, the crowd and dignitaries waited while jockeying for better views of the platform ringed with Secret Service and Baltimore PD officers. Outside, latecomers hoped to catch a glimpse of the hubbub and perhaps hear some of the remarks. A few noticed the plume of black smoke to the north and moments later the screams of sirens.
Five miles out, the Washington bound train would slow to a planned 30 miles per hour before entering the tunnel approach to Penn Station. The brakeman attempted the application well in advance, but there was no response from the now empty master cylinder. Normally, such a loss of air from the brake system’s master cylinder would trigger emergency brake applications from the emergency reserve tanks, but the faulty relay prevented that. The runaway behemoth hurtled into the tunnel portal at twice the posted speed resulting in a fiery explosion. The President of the United States was dead.
