Seconds before an Amtrak train flew off the tracks in Washington, the engineer told the crew they were traveling too fast, according to an early National Transportation Safety Board review of the crash that killed three people. 
 
 More than 70 people were injured in the Monday morning derailment, in which several train cars fell from a bridge and onto a highway in the city of DuPont, about 20 miles south of Tacoma, authorities said. The train was making the inaugural run of a new route aimed at cutting travel times and improving safety south of Tacoma. 
 
 Investigators begin analysis at the scene where an Amtrak passenger train derailed on a bridge over interstate highway I-5 in DuPont, Washington, on Dec. 18, 2017. Steve Dipaola / Reuters file 
 
 The results of the preliminary review, released on Friday, come from details gathered from an "event data recorder" and cameras mounted on the lead locomotive. The devices captured the crew's actions, their conversations and other information, the NTSB said. 
 
 The recordings included comments by the engineer about six seconds before the derailment about "an over speed condition," the NTSB said in a statement. Officials said earlier this week that the engineer was in a cab with a conductor and that the train's brakes were engaged automatically, not by the engineer. 
 
 The recording ended with the locomotive tilting and the crew bracing for impact, the statement said. 
 
 Related: Amtrak derailment: Train was traveling at 80 mph in 30-mph zone 
 
 The final recorded speed of the locomotive was 78 mph, which is within the limits for the approach to the crash location, but not the location itself, which followed a curve with a posted 30 mph speed limit, according to the NTSB. There's a sign noting the speed limit about two miles before the curve, the NTSB said. 
 
 The train was not equipped with positive train control, which can prevent derailments caused by excessive speed, officials have said. 
 
 Related: ‘Positive Train Control’ ordered by Congress, but not yet in place 
 
 The footage collected by the NTSB showed none of the crew using any personal electronic devices such as cellphones, the agency said. 
 
 The NTSB's full investigation of the crash is expected to take up to two years. ||||| PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the moment the Amtrak train that derailed at a curve this week was supposed to be slowing down, it was accelerating, investigators said Thursday. 
 
 Investigators examine the scene of a deadly train wreck, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. Federal investigators arrived Wednesday to determine why an Amtrak train jumped the tracks in Tuesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Aug. 21, 2007 photo, Amtrak assistant conductor, Brandon Bostian stands by as passengers board a train at the Amtrak station in St. Louis. Federal investigators have determined that an Amtrak... (Associated Press) 
 
 Amtrak assistant conductor, Brandon Bostian stands by as Sandra Palmer, center, says goodbye to her boyfriend, Clyde Simpson, before he boards the train at the Amtrak station in St. Louis. Federal investigators... (Associated Press) 
 
 Emergency personnel work at the scene of a deadly train derailment, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. The Amtrak train, headed to New York City, derailed and crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 As Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, left, and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, right, listen Amtrak CEO, Joseph Boardman expresses his sorrow near the site of a deadly train derailment Thursday, May 14,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, center right, hugs Lori Dee Patterson, a nearby resident, after she handed him a cup of coffee after he spoke at a news conference near the scene of a deadly train derailment,... (Associated Press) 
 
 As Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, left, listens Amtrak CEO, Joseph Boardman discusses Tuesday's deadly train derailment Thursday, May 14, 2015, in Philadelphia. An Amtrak train headed to New York... (Associated Press) 
 
 Emergency personnel walk near the scene of a deadly train wreck, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia. An Amtrak train headed to New York City derailed and crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Sen. Pat Toomey, center white shirt, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, center tan shirt, and Sen. Robert Casey, right blue shirt, tour the scene of a deadly train wreck, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, in Philadelphia.... (Associated Press) 
 
 How that came to happen has emerged as the central question surrounding the derailment, which killed eight people and sent more than 200 to hospitals Tuesday night in the nation's deadliest train wreck in nearly six years. 
 
 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, National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said. It's unclear, Sumwalt said, whether the speed was increased manually by engineer Brandon Bostian, who grew up obsessed with trains. 
 
 Investigators have found no problems with the track, signals or locomotive. Sumwalt said the train, on a route from Washington to New York City, was on time as it left the station in Philadelphia a few minutes before the crash. 
 
 Investigators want to know why the train was going so fast. But Bostian refused to talk to police on Wednesday, authorities said. On Thursday, Sumwalt said Bostian had agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB and the meeting will take place in the next few days. 
 
 Separately, the Philadelphia district attorney's office said it was investigating and will decide whether to bring charges. And an Amtrak dispatcher injured in the crash filed what's apparently the first lawsuit stemming from it, blaming Amtrak and seeking at least $150,000 in damages, his lawyer said. 
 
 Amtrak, in a statement posted online by CEO Joseph Boardman, called the derailment "a terrible tragedy" and said it was cooperating fully with the NTSB and was responding with every resource it has available. 
 
 "Amtrak takes full responsibility and deeply apologizes for our role in this tragic event," it said. 
 
 Bostian's lawyer, Robert Goggin, told ABC News that his client suffered a concussion in the wreck, needed 15 staples in his head and has "absolutely no recollection" of the crash. Goggin also said Bostian, who lives in New York, had not been using his cellphone, drinking or using drugs. 
 
 As the death toll climbed on Thursday with the discovery of what was believed to be the last body in one of the mangled railcars, Mayor Michael Nutter again appeared to cast blame on Bostian, questioning why the train was going so fast. 
 
 "I don't think that any commonsense, rational person would think that it was OK to travel at that level of speed knowing that there was a pretty significant restriction on how fast you could go through that turn," Nutter said. 
 
 Officials believe they have accounted for all 243 passengers and crew members thought to have been aboard, Nutter said. Forty-three remained hospitalized Thursday, he said. 
 
 Amtrak, meanwhile, said limited train service between Philadelphia and New York should resume on Monday, with full service by Tuesday. Amtrak carries 11.6 million passengers a year along the Northeast Corridor, which runs between Washington and Boston. 
 
 Bostian was obsessed with trains while growing up, talked about them constantly and wanted to be an engineer or a conductor, friends said. 
 
 "He would go on vacation and bring back subway maps," said Stefanie McGee, a friend from Tennessee. "He would go places with his family, and he would talk about the trains instead of the places." 
 
 Bostian graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor's in business administration and management in 2006. He became an Amtrak engineer in 2010, four years after landing a job as a conductor, according to his LinkedIn profile. 
 
 Old friends and college classmates described him in glowing terms. 
 
 "I have nothing but good things to say about Brandon," said Will Gust, who belonged to the Acacia fraternity with Bostian in college. "He is a very conscientious person, one of the most upstanding individuals that I know, just a really good quality person." 
 
 McGee, the friend who is now city clerk in Bostian's hometown of Bartlett, a suburb of Memphis, said he "talked about trains constantly" while growing up and always wanted to be an engineer or a conductor. 
 
 Bostian met up with college friends a few years ago in New York and told them he was working on trains. 
 
 "Oh, yeah, he loved his job," said Justin Scott, another fraternity member with Bostian. 
 
 On an online forum for train enthusiasts called trainorders.com, a user who signed at least two posts "Brandon Bostian" or simply "Brandon" commented on a wide range of industry issues, including safety. A couple of posts under the handle "bwb6df" lamented that railroads hadn't been fast enough to adopt positive train control, GPS-guided technology that can prevent trains from going over the speed limit. 
 
 "They have had nearly a hundred years of opportunity to implement SOME sort of system to mitigate human error, but with a few notable exceptions have failed to do so," the writer posted in 2011. The same user said in 2012: "It shouldn't take an act of Congress to get industry to adopt common-sense safety systems on their own." 
 
 It's unclear whether the author of the posts was Bostian. In a message posted Wednesday, the site's administrator refused to release any information, citing privacy reasons. 
 
 Amtrak has equipped most of its heavily used Northeast Corridor with positive train control, but it was not in operation along the section where the accident took place because it was still being tested, said Boardman, the CEO. 
 
 However, Boardman vowed on Thursday that the technology will be in operation along the entire Northeast Corridor by the end of 2015, the deadline set by Congress. 
 
 On Tuesday, the job Bostian loved so much had him operating Amtrak's Train 188 from Washington to New York. 
 
 "He remembers coming into the curve," said Goggin, his attorney. "He remembers attempting to reduce speed, and thereafter he was knocked out." 
 
 But Goggin said the engineer doesn't recall anything out of the ordinary and doesn't remember applying the emergency brakes, as investigators say was done. He said Bostian's cellphone was off and stored in his bag before the accident, as required. 
 
 Goggin said that his client "cooperated fully" with police and told them "everything that he knew," immediately consenting to a blood test and surrendering his cellphone. 
 
 Within hours of the wreck, Bostian's Facebook profile picture was changed to a black rectangle. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Kunzelman reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this story. ||||| (CNN) One of three conductors aboard the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia this week told investigators she heard the locomotive's engineer say the train had been struck by an object, National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said Friday. 
 
 The assistant conductor said she overheard radio transmissions made Tuesday by Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian and the engineer of a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) train. 
 
 "She recalled that the SEPTA engineer had reported to the train dispatcher that he had either been hit by a rock or shot at, and the SEPTA engineer said that he had a broken windshield, and he placed his train into emergency stop," Sumwalt said. "She also believed that she heard (the Amtrak) engineer say something about his train being struck by something." 
 
 Bostian was interviewed Friday afternoon for the first time since the derailment of Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188. Eight people were killed and more than 200 were injured. 
 
 While he was "extremely cooperative," he had "no recollection" of anything that happened once the train passed the North Philadelphia station, about 3 miles from the crash site, Sumwalt said. Bostian suffered a concussion, among other injuries. 
 
 The locomotive's windshield was shattered in the derailment. But Sumwalt said there is "particular damage" to the lower portion of the windshield that the FBI will examine. He described it as a "circular pattern that emanates out just a bit." 
 
 "We're very interested in this report. We want to learn more about it so we will use all sources of information that we can to independently validate that," Sumwalt said. 
 
 That includes meeting with the engineer of the SEPTA train. 
 
 NTSB Has secured outward-facing video from the SEPTA train in question and will be reviewing radio transmissions. #Amtrak — NTSB (@NTSB) May 15, 2015 
 
 Engineer reported no problems 
 
 Investigators are considering all possibilities, including speed, track conditions and human error, as they try to figure out what happened. 
 
 Much of the focus has been on Bostian, the 32-year-old at the controls of the train when it accelerated into a 50-mph curve at a speed of 106 mph. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Train accelerated from 70 mph to more than 100 mph Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Train accelerated from 70 mph to more than 100 mph 02:31 
 
 Bostian told investigators he was not ill or tired, felt "fully qualified and ... reported no problems with his train handling," Sumwalt said. 
 
 Under questioning, "he demonstrated very good working knowledge of the territory" where the derailment occurred, including speed limits at various points along the route between Washington and New York, which he made five days a week. 
 
 The NTSB will reassemble the train to connect its brake lines and test the braking system. 
 
 Other trains reportedly struck by objects 
 
 Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said if the report of a projectile striking the train is true, "it would be a tremendous distraction" to the engineer. 
 
 Passenger Alfred Price told CNN he was sitting only three or four rows away from the engineer booth of the affected SEPTA train at about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday when he heard a loud boom and the train came to a stop. The engineer, who appeared shaken up, told passengers that something had hit the train. 
 
 I am aboard septa train to Trenton. Train was hit by something and came to a stop. Moments later the Amtrak train that derailed passed us. — Alfred Price (@TheAlfredPrice) May 13, 2015 
 
 Scott Knowles, another passenger on the SEPTA train, said the incident happened somewhere between Philadelphia's 30th Street station and the North Philadelphia station. The 30th Street station is the last stop the derailed Amtrak 188 train made before the crash. 
 
 Adding to the mystery of what happened the night of the derailment, passengers aboard a third train also reported their train getting struck by an object. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Passenger says earlier train struck by object Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Passenger says earlier train struck by object 02:48 
 
 Passenger Madison Calvert was aboard an Amtrak Acela train from New York to Philadelphia when he heard a "loud thud" that left part of the window next to him cracked in a circular pattern. 
 
 The incident happened right outside 30th Street station roughly 20 minutes before the crash, Calvert told CNN. 
 
 Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said Wednesday that the Acela incident was not related to the derailment. 
 
 SEPTA engineers have reported "from time to time" projectiles hitting trains in this area before, said spokeswoman Kristin Geiger. 
 
 Co-workers describe engineer as 'very professional' 
 
 Bostian has had a reputation as a transportation buff since high school when he wrote about rail travel for his school newspaper. One of the online posts linked to him suggests he was working on a short-line railroad when he was 20 or 21. 
 
 What we know about the engineer 
 
 His LinkedIn profile says he joined Amtrak as a conductor after graduating from the University of Missouri in 2006. He became an engineer about 4½ years later. 
 
 His attorney, Robert Goggin, has said Bostian wasn't drunk, drugged or distracted by his cell phone Tuesday night. Nor has he had mishaps or major issues on the job, Goggin said. 
 
 The conductors aboard the train described to NTSB investigators a good working relationship with the engineer, calling him "very professional" and "great to work with," according to Sumwalt. 
 
 "He was very thorough always when it came to work (and) he was on point," said friend Xavier Bishop, who lost his job with Amtrak due to absenteeism issues. "He knew what he needed to know and if he wasn't sure about it ... he was going to call and make sure that he got the proper information." 
 
 Still, the engineer's seemingly stellar past hasn't stopped people from pointing fingers at him -- starting with Mayor Nutter. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Mayor: 'Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mayor: 'Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible' 07:18 
 
 Nutter called Bostian's driving "clearly ... reckless," telling CNN, "There's no way in the world he should have been going that fast into the curve." 
 
 Investigators looking at speed as factor 
 
 CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta said the crash could have caused post-traumatic amnesia in which a person forgets parts of what happened before and after an injury. 
 
 Bishop, who "went up and down those rails with Brandon hundreds of times," is among those befuddled by the crash, saying, "I really believe something happened to prior to him getting to that curve. We all know what the speed limits are; it's not a mystery us." 
 
 The Philadelphia District Attorney's office is closely monitoring the investigation of the crash, but at this point there is nothing conclusive indicating Bostian was criminally reckless, according to an official with the DA's office. 
 
 One area of interest is whether the engineer could have possibly been distracted, perhaps by his cell phone. While Bostian's attorney said in an interview with ABC earlier this week that his client's cell phone was off at the time of the crash, investigators are pulling the engineer's phone records to determine whether there was any activity at the time of the derailment, according to a Philadelphia police official. 
 
 Bostian touted safety tools to override human error 
 
 Long before the derailment, Bostian apparently was an online advocate to prevent such a calamity -- technology to slow a dangerously fast train when an engineer does not. 
 
 "They have had nearly a hundred years of opportunity to implement SOME sort of system to mitigate human error," one post read. "But with a few notable exceptions (the rail industry) has failed to do so." 
 
 This message was one of several in recent years appearing to be written by Bostian on TrainOrders.com, which describes itself as a "railfan site" with photos, multimedia, chat and discussion forums. In one of the posts with the same "author" name, he writes out his name in full; in another, he uses his first initial. In one more, he describes himself as a student in Missouri originally from Memphis, Tennessee, which was true at the time. 
 
 Sumwalt has said already that there would have been no derailment if technology known as positive train control had been in place on the fateful override track to overrule an errant, oblivious or incapacitated engineer. 
 
 How does positive train control work? 
 
 Sumwalt has been seconded by rail experts, insiders and aficionados. Bostian himself apparently was an advocate of such an approach before the crash. 
 
 A 2011 post mentions how the NTSB decades ago put positive train control on its "most wanted" list of rail upgrades, then lamented that it took Congress to pass a law mandating the change by the end of 2015. Bostian apparently wrote that railroads have had many tools available for decades to curb crashes such as the one in Southern California involving a freight train and a Metrolink commuter train that killed 25 people in 2008. 
 
 "It shouldn't take an act of Congress to get (the rail) industry to adopt common-sense safety systems on their own," one message states. 
 
 Debate over Amtrak technology, funding 
 
 Many concur it is a shame positive train control wasn't installed already in places such as Frankford Junction, the curve in the track where this week's train crash happened. That includes Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman. 
 
 "Had it been installed, it would have been prevented this accident," the Amtrak chief told CNN's Rene Marsh. "That's what I've been saying for a long period of time." 
 
 JUST WATCHED Amtrak CEO: Derailment could have been prevented Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Amtrak CEO: Derailment could have been prevented 01:43 
 
 And it's going to happen, at least, on Amtrak's busy Northeast Corridor -- which includes rails around Philadelphia -- by December 31, Boardman pledged. 
 
 Even after then, questions remain about why it's taken so long and what other infrastructure or technological improvements aren't happening. 
 
 Boardman said Amtrak and other transportation infrastructure nationally are significantly underfunded. This problem leaves agencies with tough questions about which safety upgrades to implement and which ones not to, with potentially dangerous implications. 
 
 There's no guarantee that more funding is coming. 
 
 On Wednesday, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee voted to reduce grants to Amtrak by $252 million, a drop of about 15% from last year's level. 
 
 The move doesn't mean such a cut will become reality. But it certainly doesn't bode well for those -- such as Boardman and President Barack Obama -- who have called for more spending to repair decaying infrastructure in the wake of the latest crash.
– The engineer apparently knew the Amtrak train that derailed Monday in Washington state, killing three people and injuring more than 70, was going too fast. He just didn't know it in time. In a preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board states the engineer, who was in the cab with the conductor, commented on "an over speed condition" just six seconds before the crash, NBC News reports. It remains unclear why the train, the first run on a new route, was going nearly 80mph as it entered a 30mph zone. The NTSB review also found neither the conductor nor other crew were using cellphones or other personal electronic devices, as had been the case in previous crashes, according to the Los Angeles Times.