The speed of the Amtrak train that crashed and killed at least eight people surged from 70mph to 106mph just seconds before it derailed, it has been revealed.

The NTSB said the commuter service was travelling at twice the speed limit when it came off the tracks near Philadelphia's 30th Street station on Tuesday night.

Engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, hit the emergency brakes, but it was too late.

It has also been claimed that 'Positive Train Control' - used to slow the train down - was actually installed but wasn't turned on, leading to the fatalities and more than 200 injuries.

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Revelations: The NTSB have said the speed of the Amtrak train that crashed in Philadephia and caused the death of eight people surged from 70mph to 106mph just seconds before it derailed

Probe: Engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, (pictured in St Louis, Missouri, in 2007) hit the emergency brakes, decreasing the speed to 102mph, but it was too late. The agency are trying to figure out whether he increased the speed of the train manually

Bostian complained that the technology to stop accidents had been around for 80 years but was not widely installed - including on the curve where he crashed.

His lawyers have said he does not remember anything of the crash.

A top congressional aide told The Washington Examiner that an Amtrak employee informed the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday the system was in place along the section of track outside Philadelphia's 30th Street station, but was not operating.

The employee is said to have informed the committee they were experiencing delays with the system because the radios do not have enough frequency.

The Federal Communication Commission has spent $110million on the system, and are now trying to figure out why it hadn't been turned on.

Funding has become a part of the political debate over the crash. House Speaker John Boehner blew up on Thursday at a reporter who tried to ask him at a press conference about Democratic claims that Amtrak needs additional funding.

'Well, obviously it's not about funding,' he said. 'The train was going twice the speed limit.'

Republicans on a powerful House panel on Wednesday blocked a bid by Democrats to boost Amtrak's budget by more than $1 billion, including $556 million targeted for the railroad's Northeast corridor, the site of the deadly derailment. Budget laws have tied their hands, they claimed.

Over the years Bostian made dozens of posts on industry website Trainorders.com that were linked to him by the New York Times. The forum confirmed he had made them.

In 2009 he commented on a debate about whether a train engineer should stop for a new crew once he reached his 10 hour working limit.

Bostian bristled at the idea and said that the rules were there for a reason.

Closer look: Bostian was at the controls of Amtrak locomotive 601, which was heading train 188, a North East Corridor regional train service from Washington Union Station to New York Penn Station

He wrote: 'Everyone wants an extension to hours of service to avoid inconvenience, but what will you say when the crew that's been on duty for longer than 12 hours accidentally falls asleep and passes a stop signal and rear-ends a loaded hazmat train, killing dozens or hundreds of people?

'A crew is probably not any less safe after 12 hours and one minute than they were a few moments ago, but you have to draw that line somewhere.'

Bostian, who has been an engineer with Amtrak since 2009, was interviewed by the police over six hours on Wednesday, had a blood sample taken and has handed his cell phone over to authorities.

He has declined to give a formal statement to police but has agreed to be interviewed by the NTSB.

His lawyer, Robert Goggin, told ABC News that Bostian suffered leg injuries and a concussion and needed 14 staples to his head following the crash. He said he 'has absolutely no recollection of the event' - but said he can hopefully reveal more once he recovers and his memory returns.

Past: Brandon Bostian (pictured left while working as a cashier for Target) used to live in Memphis, and graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2006. He now lives in Queens, New York

Brandon Bostian with friends - one of them wearing an Amtrak jacket - at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, where the doomed Amtrak Train 188 departed from on Tuesday night

'He remembers driving the train,' Goggin said. 'He remembers going to that area generally, [but] has absolutely no recollection of the incident or anything unusual. The next thing he recalls is being thrown around, coming to, finding his bag, getting his cell phone and dialing 911.'

NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said it was unclear whether Bostian had manually increased the speed - but insisted he was the only one who could have done it.

However he doesn't think he did it deliberately. He said: 'If we thought that, we wouldn't be here, because that would be a criminal act.