CRESCENT CITY, Fla. -- According to the Orlando Sentinel, crew members backed up the account of an Amtrak Auto Train engineer who said he saw a buckled track just before his train derailed, federal investigators said Saturday.

Investigators also said the section of track near Crescent City where the Auto Train derailed Thursday, killing four passengers, had recently been repaired.

The engineer told investigators he activated the emergency brake because he saw a section of track about a car length ahead that appeared to bulge out of place about 10 inches.

A second engineer who was in the locomotive and a conductor who was two cars back told investigators that just before the derailment, they felt the train strike a disjointed spot in the track and they also pulled the emergency brake, said George Black of the NTSB.

More than half of the train's 40 cars left the tracks, injuring more than 100 of the 452 passengers and crew aboard and ripping out a long section of the track, which is owned and operated by CSX Corp. The lead locomotive came to rest 1,325 feet, 7 inches from the point of derailment.

Along with the investigation, work continued Saturday to clear the derailed cars and reopen the track, the main rail line from Orlando to the Northeast. Auto Train officials made arrangements to get the hundreds of stranded passengers and their cars to their destinations.

The track is expected to be reopened this morning. The Auto Train, which operates between Sanford and Lorton, Va., may be back in service by Tuesday.

Probe focuses on track

Black emphasized that investigators had not ruled anything out, but he said, "At this point in the investigation, we're focusing on the track."

Black would not name the engineer who first pulled the emergency brake Thursday, but he said the engineer has 35 years of experience, and he described him as "well-qualified." Black said routine breath tests of the crew showed they had not been drinking.

The train's two engineers were put on temporary administrative leave, a standard procedure in an investigation, Amtrak spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said Saturday. She said she didn't think either played a role in the accident.

"We feel they acted appropriately," Cantillon said.

Investigators have not determined whether the rail was the cause of the crash. But the type of welded rail used on the track has a history of buckling, especially in hot conditions, as the steel expands and contracts, a condition known as a "sun kink."

While air temperatures have been only in the 80s, the track can get much hotter. On Saturday, Black said, the track reached 120 degrees.

Two years ago, an audit by the Federal Railroad Administration identified numerous problems in CSX's track maintenance, including defects that had caused derailments. CSX officials said they have made improvements that reduced the number of derailments since then, and they said there is no proof that a rail defect caused Thursday's accident.

Rail workers said the stretch near the derailment, known as the Silver Lake Curve, has been the site of frequent repairs.

In March, the track in that area was resurfaced. At about the same time, workers also replaced a wooden rail tie within 100 feet of the derailment site, investigators said.

After repair work, investigators said, the speed limit on the curve, normally 60 mph, was temporarily reduced to 25 mph.

The "slow order" lowering the speed had been lifted April 9.

The Auto Train was traveling at 56 mph when it derailed.

CSX spokesman Adam Hollingsworth said all the recent work on the curve was "very routine maintenance," including smoothing, leveling and aligning the rails and tamping down the gravel "ballast" that keeps the ties and rails in place.

Crash echoes Texas wreck

Some aspects of Thursday's derailment appeared similar to the derailment in December 1998 of an Amtrak train in Arlington, Texas, that injured 22 people.

In that crash, the engineer of the last train to safely pass through the curve before the derailment reported seeing a sun kink in the rail, although the temperature was only 40-50 degrees.

Just four days before the Texas crash, a rail-maintenance worker had tamped down the ballast with a machine that compacts the gravel, and the speed of trains was temporarily reduced.

In January, NTSB investigators blamed the Texas derailment in part on improper maintenance and a failure to pass along information about the defective rail, and they said heavy rain in the area after a long drought also may have caused the track bed to shift.

The last train to pass through the Silver Lake Curve on Thursday before the Auto Train was a 95-car freight train hauling coal to the Orlando Utilities Commission power plant east of Orlando.

The OUC train reported no problems with the track. Investigators who inspected the train's "black box" data recorder said Saturday that it was traveling at 36 mph through the derailment site and that it did not use its brakes there, something that could displace a rail.

Investigators said track-side "defect detectors" designed to warn of damaged train wheels or dragging equipment spotted no problems on the trains that passed through the curve Thursday.

About two dozen injured passengers and crew remained in hospitals across Central Florida on Saturday, but most were in satisfactory or fair condition.

One patient remained in critical condition at a Gainesville hospital, and two others were in serious condition at hospitals in Jacksonville and Daytona Beach.

At Putnam Community Health Center, eight of 15 patients from the train crash were released Saturday, and those who remained were listed in stable condition.

Crowds dwindle at crash site

In tiny Crescent City, there was a shrinking crowd of visitors who came to see the site of the derailment Saturday.

Fourteen-year-old Ian Pickens said things were getting back to normal after a couple of days of being on the network news and watching his school auditorium being used to house and feed stranded train passengers.

"All we've got here is one stoplight and five fast-food restaurants," he said. "No doubt this is the biggest thing to happen in Crescent City."