Over at Page One, Jake has a story from a zoo employee with actual experience driving the train, like the one that de-railed.

According to his source, the train jumping off the tracks isn’t that unusual. It gets stuck a lot at the point where it de-railed.  And often, the cause is excessive speed. The speed of the train, unlike more modern rides you may be familiar with at amusement parks, is controlled by the operator.

That information doesn’t square with the official Zoo e-mail blast from yesterday, in which director John Walczak claimed there had not been a single occurrence of the train de-railing in two years. Walczak seems to be a competent administrator, and we were impressed with his performance before the Metro Council last week at the budget hearings.

Walczak issued the e-mail yesterday, promising a review of all safety measures at the Zoo. That’s straight out of PR 101. So is not releasing the identity of the poor 18-year-old driver who must have been going too fast when the accident occurred.

But isn’t it a little bit disturbing if this is NOT an isolated incident, as our source claims? If 18-year-old drivers can control the speed of the train, knowing it could jump the track if they go too fast?

When the inevitable lawsuits start poring in from victims, isn’t it going to be hard to defend the ride if there’s evidence that the Zoo employees knew the train was likely to de-rail?

And while the local paper and TV stations have been trying to give us the real story, giving us the 911 calls and aerial footage and reports from the hospitals where victims were taken, how come none of them could find anyone who had driven the train before?

We’ve been trying to reach Zoo officials today, but gotten no response. We’ll let you know what they have to say.