Train engineer can't remember accident

The train engineer of the Amtrak train which derailed killing 8 people has said he can't remember the accident.

32-year-old, Brandon Bostian experienced concussion, 14 stitches in his head and more in his leg from the wreck.

Bostian worked for Amtrak as a conductor for 9 years and became an engineer in 2010. He graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2006.

The train, which was travelling from Washington to New York, was going 170km/h before derailing on a curve where the speed limit is 50 mph.

Robert Goggin, who is Bostian's lawyer and who is speaking for Bostian because he hasn't given a statement to law enforcement yet, said Bostian remembers coming into the curve, trying to reduce the speed of the train and then getting knocked out.

He doesn't remember using the emergency brake.

BBC reports that Bostian is cooperating with police and consented to a blood test along with giving up his mobile phone. He claims not to have been drinking or doing drugs.

While Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has said the engineer was "clearly reckless and irresponsible", the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), however, was not as quick to blame Bostian.

Reports say  accident investigators want to give Bostian some time to recover from shock before they start talking to him about the accident.