One of the Amtrak employees killed in Sunday morning's crash in South Carolina was an Army veteran who worked in the railroad industry for more than a decade, his brother told the Daily News. 
 
 Michael Kempf, 54, had been with Amtrak for up to six years, his younger brother, Rich, said. After a recent round of train accidents and budget tightening he'd voiced concerns something could happen to him on the rails. 
 
 "Me and him always talked about this...something happening," said Rich Kempf, who lives in Mesa, Ariz. "He was voicing concerns about getting killed." 
 
 Michael Kempf, left, was one of two Amtrak employees killed early Sunday. (Courtesy Donna Kempf) 
 
 Kempf and conductor Michael Cella, 36, died after Amtrak Train 91 headed for Miami collided with a stationary CSX freight train at about 2:35 a.m. south of Cayce, S.C., according to Lexington County coroner Margaret Fisher. 
 
 2 dead, 116 hurt as Amtrak carrying nearly 150 from N.Y. derails 
 
 Gov. Henry McMaster indicated the Amtrak train may have been on the wrong track, potentially due to a signal issue. 
 
 Conductor Michael Cella, 36, died after Amtrak Train 91 headed for Miami collided with a stationary CSX freight train at about 2:35 a.m. south of Cayce, S.C. (Courtesy of WLTX / News19) 
 
 Amtrak said CSX is responsible for maintaining signals on that stretch of rail, which is located southwest of Columbia, the state's capital. 
 
 The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what caused the crash. 
 
 Amtrak didn’t immediately return a request for comment. 
 
 Rep. Roger Marshall performs CPR on truck driver 
 
 Kempf, a father of three sons who lived in Savannah, Ga., spent 20 years in the Army, his brother said. He was stationed in South Korea and Panama, and was a tank driver for some of that time. 
 
 Investigators are looking into what caused the Amtrak and CSX trains to collide. (Randall Hill/REUTERS) 
 
 He went to work for CSX once he got out of the Army, and spent between eight or nine years first as a conductor and then as a certified engineer, Rich Kempf told the News. 
 
 "They paid good money and you got good benefits," he said. 
 
 "He was a good guy," Rich Kempf continued, adding Michael had cared for their mother since their father's death 12 years ago. "He's been taking care of my mom, his kids and his wife." 
 
 Workers warned Amtrak about lack of training before deadly crash 
 
 Cella, who lived in Orange Park, FL., was a married father of two children, The State newspaper reported. 
 
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 With Laura Thompson, News Wire Services ||||| A railroad switch that was apparently locked in the wrong position is being blamed by federal investigators for a train collision early Sunday that killed two people and injured up to 116 others near Cayce. 
 
 Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Sunday afternoon that there’s no evidence of foul play, although the FBI is assisting in the investigation. 
 
 Sumwalt said the accident could have been avoided if a federal safety system, under consideration for years, had been in place. The system is supposed to slow down trains when a problem lies ahead on a track. He called the damage to the trains “catastrophic.” 
 
 Sumwalt made his remarks after an Amtrak train slammed into a stationary CSX freight train at 2:35 a.m. in Lexington County. An NTSB official declined to say if the accident was the fault of CSX, but noted that CSX is responsible for maintaining proper track position. CSX is the owner of the track but Amtrak uses the line. 
 
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 A switch was aligned and padlocked to divert the Amtrak train onto a side track, where the CSX freight train was parked. The train, estimated to be traveling at more than 50 mph but within the 59 mph speed limit, then slammed into the line of two locomotives and 34 freight cars, officials said. Sumwalt said there was “no way” the Amtrak train could have stopped to avoid a collision. 
 
 “The key to this investigation is learning why that switch was lined that way,” Sumwalt said during a packed news conference attended by media from across the country. He said “our goal is to find out not only what happened, but why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again.” 
 
 CSX issued a statement late Sunday afternoon, offering condolences to the families of the two men killed in the train wreck. 
 
 “We remain focused on providing assistance and support to those impacted by today’s accident,’’ the company’s statement said. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Watch this timeline of the events following the deadly train crash in Cayce, South Carolina on February 4, 2018. Ashlen Rennerarenner@thestate.com 
 
 Sumwalt, a Columbia resident in town when the accident occurred, said a safety system known as “positive train control” could have saved lives in the accident, as it could with other train wrecks across the country. The NTSB has been trying for more than 40 years to have such controls implemented, he said. 
 
 According to the Federal Railroad Administration, Congress required some railroad mainlines, including those with commuter rail passenger service, to fully implement positive train control by the end of 2015. But Congress extended the deadline by at least three years to Dec. 31, 2018, according to the FRA. 
 
 Such technology acts similar to a braking system, to prevent crashes. If signals ahead indicate a problem, the positive train control is supposed to slow down the locomotive remotely. 
 
 “Everyone of these accidents, in fact, could have been prevented” by positive train control, he said. “How many years have we been calling for PTC?” 
 
 Positive train control is a system designed to compensate for human error, such as leaving a train switch in the wrong position, officials said. In this case, the switch was locked, but in the wrong position, Sumwalt said. 
 
 “This is indeed a tragic human error,” Sumwalt said after the news conference. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK NTSB chairman explains investigation next step at the South Carolina Emergency Management Division on February 4, 2018, in West Columbia. Gavin McInytreonline@thestate.com 
 
 Sumwalt said NTSB investigators would likely be in the Midlands throughout the week. Sumwalt said video from the Amtrak train had been recovered and sent to Washington for analysis, but two data recorders in each train had not been recovered. 
 
 Sunday’s news conference provided some new details of the tragedy. Among them was the revelation the freight train was there to unload automobiles before parking for the night on the side track. Sumwalt also said the Amtrak train had nine crew members. Two of the crew died in the wreck. 
 
 During the coming days, the NTSB will examine whether the crew of the trains had taken required drug and alcohol tests and whether crew members had been given proper rest. The agency will also look at cell phone records and examine the signal system, visible lighting on the tracks that warn of problems ahead. 
 
 The latter could be an issue. 
 
 Amtrak President Richard Anderson said earlier Sunday that the signal system was down when the wreck occurred. 
 
 Anderson said dispatchers at CSX were manually routing trains around 2:45 a.m. Sunday. He says he would defer to National Transportation Safety Board investigators to determine what role that played in the wreck that also sent 116 people to the hospital, most with minor injuries. 
 
 Speaking in a phone conference call with reporters, Anderson says the crash of the train heading from New York to Miami shows why the U.S. needs to install positive train control by year's end. 
 
 The system is in place in the Northeast, but Anderson says private companies that run the tracks Amtrak uses elsewhere have in the past asked for extensions to deadlines. 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this story.
– The crash that killed two Amtrak crew members and injured more than 100 other people wouldn't have happened under a safety system the National Transportation Safety Board has been seeking for decades, says NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt. He said Sunday that "Positive Train Control," which slows trains down remotely when signals indicate there is a problem ahead, would have saved lives in this crash and many others, the State reports. He said the system is designed to compensate for "tragic human errors," like the one that caused the New York-Miami train to slam into CSX freight trains near Cayce, SC, after it ended up on the wrong track early Sunday. Congress required PTC to be installed on railroad mainlines by the end of 2015, but later changed the deadline to the end of this year, the Federal Railroad Administration says. Amtrak President Richard Anderson said Sunday that the freight company was responsible for sending the Amtrak train onto the sidetrack where a CSX train was stopped. "CSX had lined and padlocked the switch off the mainline to the siding, causing the collision," he said, per Reuters. The brother of engineer Michael Kempf, one of two men killed in the crash, tells the New York Daily News that his brother, an Army veteran who had worked on the railroads for almost a decade, had been "voicing concerns about getting killed" after recent accidents and budget cuts.