Kensington, Md. ? The engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed this week saw a “misshapen” area of track just before the accident, and investigators later found the rails more than two feet out of alignment, a federal official said Tuesday.

Carol Carmody, vice chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, wouldn’t say whether the misaligned track caused the double-decker passenger train to derail about 10 miles from its destination.

CSX workmen remove sections of track where the Amtrak Capitol Limited train derailed Monday in Kensington, Md. Investigators said Tuesday that the track was more than two feet out of alignment. Thirteen cars derailed and more than 100 people were injured.

“The alignment was existing before the derailment, let’s put it that way,” Carmody said.

The engineer of the Capitol Limited told investigators he applied the brakes after seeing the “misshapen” area, which he said was about 18 inches long, Carmody said. The train derailed about 45 seconds later.

Investigators found the track in the area was as much as 30 inches out of alignment, Carmody said.

The train was traveling from Chicago to Washington when it went off the tracks, injuring 101 people. Sixteen of them remained hospitalized Tuesday, including one in serious condition.

What caused the track to buckle wasn’t immediately known, but experts speculated that Monday’s hot weather was to blame. The number of accidents due to heat-twisted track has dropped over the years, but no technology exists to stop it.

Buckling can happen on welded rails that don’t have joints, such as the CSX Corp. track the Amtrak train was on. Joints allow extra room when a rail expands in the heat; without them, the pressure can force track to bulge out more than a foot.

A reading taken before the accident showed the temperature of the rail was 118 degrees, Carmody said. However, she did not say whether that was unusual.

Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Jack Quinn, R-N.Y., who is chairman of the House transportation subcommittee on railroads, said initial reports show “the extreme temperatures in the Washington, D.C., area may have caused a heat kink in the track, forcing the train to derail.”

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, there were 174 accidents in 1980 resulting from buckled tracks. Last year, there were 44.

CSX, which owns and operates the tracks where the accident occurred, said Tuesday it was ordering Amtrak and other commuter rail services that use its lines to slow down and follow rules imposed on its freight trains on days when heat threatens to warp rails.

The speed limit on the stretch of track where the accident happened normally is 70 mph for passenger trains and 55 mph for freight trains, CSX said. A heat order issued by CSX on Monday required freight trains, but not passenger trains, to travel 10 miles below the posted speed limit.

CSX said the new policy would begin today and continue at least until the end of the summer when temperatures rise to 90 degrees on consecutive days or fluctuate by 40 degrees two days in a row.