Locomotive of Wrecked Train Is Recovered : Probe: Bodies of three more crash victims are found after crane pulls engine from mud of bayou. Officials hope to find data recorder intact.

A salvage crane pulled the front locomotive of the Sunset Limited out of the gray mud of Bayou Canot like a cork from a bottle Friday, and firefighters recovered the bodies of its three-man crew, raising the death toll in the worst train wreck in Amtrak history to 47.

Investigators hoped that the locomotive’s data recorder had survived the viscous muck. Each of the train’s three locomotives had a recorder, but Howard Robertson, an Amtrak spokesman, said the lead recorder was the most sophisticated--”the one we don’t want to get wet.”

The head locomotive of the Sunset Limited hurtled off a trestle across the bayou early Wednesday, flew across the water like a 100-ton spear and plunged into the mud on the far side. The other two locomotives and four of its eight cars followed it into the water. The train carried 210 people; 163 survived.

Investigators say a barge being pushed by a towboat lost in a blanket of pre-dawn fog had struck the trestle moments before. They found that tracks on the trestle were misaligned by 41 inches. The blow from the barge could have caused this bend, they said, and the displacement could have derailed the train.

Weight estimates of the locomotive ranged from 90 tons to 120 tons. That weight, traveling at 70 m.p.h., drove two-thirds of the train engine into the bayou. The back third remained above water, protruding like a big stick. It was charred by fire. A diagonal line showed where the fire had burned down to the water.

Cables from the crane, which is capable of lifting 1,000 tons, were fastened to the rear of the locomotive with choker slings. They tightened like slip knots once the lifting began. As the crane pulled upward, everything below the diagonal line--the bottom two-thirds of the locomotive--rose out of the water.

The crane dangled the locomotive in the air by its end, then lowered it gently onto a barge measuring more than 200 feet long and 100 feet wide.

The cab of the locomotive was packed tightly with mud. With a hose from a fireboat, rescuers blasted a cavity into the mud so they could enter and start digging for the crew.

Lying on the barge, the front two-thirds of the locomotive was also covered with mud. Workers used the hose to clear away enough to show Amtrak’s red, white and blue insignia. The locomotive wheels and their undercarriages stayed behind in the bottom of the bayou. Investigators said they expected to recover them too.

Rescuers and salvagers numbered more than 100, sweltering in 90-degree heat and near-100% humidity. The men worked in teams, using four cranes in all, mounted on barges. Two large tugboats maneuvered the cranes carefully into place around the rest of the wreckage in the water.

“We still have three passenger cars, two locomotives and a lot of bridge debris to get out,” said Lt. Bob Foster, the U.S. Coast Guard coordinator as he watched from a buoy tender. “The operation has been running very smoothly, but it’s not an easy task. It took about five hours to get (the locomotive) out of the mud.”

Robertson said it would take five more days to complete the operation. He said trains would be running over the trestle again in about two weeks. Meanwhile, he said, a medical examiner would positively identify bodies found in the locomotive.

They were the lead engineer, an assistant engineer and a “qualifying engineer,” Robertson said. He described the latter as an engineer being trained to be at the controls on this particular stretch of track.

Robertson said the lead engineer was believed to have been at the controls at the time of the wreck.

Investigators concentrated on the role of the towboat and its barges. They tried to unravel differences in reports about when the vessels were in the bayou and when the train crossed the trestle. Such differences,” said Russ Gober, chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, “are quite common.”

Andrew Stabler, 46, operator of the barge, and the three members of his crew continued to refer NTSB investigators to their attorneys. The NTSB has authority to subpoena the men, but John Hammerschmidt, a member of the board, said he preferred to obtain voluntary statements whenever it was possible.

The crew worked for Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., whose general manager, Andrew Harris, said the towboat and six barges were in the bayou to tie up during the fog. The company has pledged to cooperate with investigators but has given little information to reporters about what happened in the bayou.

Harris said he could not confirm that a barge hit the railroad trestle. Federal officials, including Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, have said it was clear one of the barges struck the trestle while Stabler was taking them, three ahead of his boat and three behind, up the bayou.

Stabler acknowledged in a tape-recorded radio-telephone call to the Coast Guard that he was lost. Authorities, including the FBI and the police department in Mobile, Ala., 10 miles south, all said the towboat and barges had no business using the bayou.

“Barges are not allowed in that creek,” said Chuck Archer, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Mobile. “Out of the six barges, I don’t know that any of them was short enough to go under that bridge.” The FBI has said criminal charges are possible in the matter, but a prosecutor said this was uncertain.

The tracks across the trestle were equipped with sensors to alert train conductors of problems ahead. A low-power electric current runs through the rails. CSX Transportation Inc., which operates the tracks, said the electricity sets off signals alongside the track if the current is cut.

Such a system would not activate if the blow by the barge against the trestle only bent the tracks and did not break them, officials said. Investigators described the damage to the tracks as a displacement and not a break.

Times staff writer Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles contributed to this story.