The trial in the 2015 Amtrak crash will be delayed for at least two days

The trial for former Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian, who is facing a host of charges over the 2015 fatal derailment in Frankford, will be delayed by several days because of court-related scheduling issues, court officials said Monday.

Jury selection in Bostian’s case, which had been scheduled to start Tuesday, is now expected to begin no earlier than Thursday, said Gabriel Roberts, spokesperson for the First Judicial District. Roberts declined to offer further specifics about the scheduling complications.

Bostian, 38, was the lone engineer onboard Amtrak Train 188 when it went off the rails while moving at double the speed limit in May 2015. Eight people died in the wreck and more than 200 were injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board said a year after the crash that Bostian had likely lost his “situational awareness” after listening to radio chatter about a rock striking another nearby train. He then accelerated while approaching a curve. The agency said Bostian was not intoxicated or using his cell phone at the time.

» READ MORE: Was the 2015 Amtrak crash in Frankford a mistake or a crime? A jury will now decide

Prosecutors with the state Attorney General’s Office have contended that Bostian’s conduct was reckless and the cause of the disaster. He is facing eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, hundreds of counts of reckless endangerment, and causing a catastrophe, and could face time behind bars if convicted.

Bostian’s lawyers have said he was a conscientious engineer and that the derailment was a tragic mistake. If anyone is criminally culpable for the wreck, they’ve argued, it’s the people, never identified, who were throwing rocks at trains, causing Bostian to become uncharacteristically disoriented.

The trial is expected to last up to two weeks once it gets underway.