Donald Phillips, who covered the transportation industry for nearly 20 years at The Washington Post and then the International Herald-Tribune, died Sept. 23 at the age of 83.
Kevin Keefe of Trains.com writes, “Phillips gained national prominence as a transportation writer when he joined the Washington Post in 1986, working there 19 years. After leaving the Post he spent nearly two years writing for the International Herald Tribune.
“The transportation beat gave Phillips a front-row seat at a wrenching time, marked by deregulation across not only railroading but also aviation and trucking. He covered changes in federal transportation policy, the mega-merger era in the railroad industry, the growing use of super-size trucks, as well as a string of grievous, precedent-setting accidents, about which he also reported for Trains.
“The latter included the infamous Jan. 4, 1987, wreck near Chase, Md., in which Amtrak’s New York-bound Colonial plowed into a Conrail local that strayed onto the Northeast Corridor main line, killing 16 people. The accident led to major changes in the railroad industry’s drug-testing policy. Phillips also reported extensively on the crash of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited at Bayou Canot north of Mobile, Ala., on Sept. 22, 1993, as well as the explosive loss of TWA flight 800 over Long Island on July 17, 1996.”
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