I caught the last 15 minutes last night, but recorded the repeat to watch later. The segment I saw was devoted to high speed passenger rail in Japan and Europe, which contrasts with service in a huge continent like North America. Thankfully, a U.S. freight industry spokesman was interviewed and stated with accurate pride that North American freight service is the envy of most of the world, with its high capacity, clearances and track speeds. It's funny that when people learn of my interest in railroading, they talk Amtrak. To the general public, Amtrak is the face of U.S. railroading, despite a U.S. rail freight system that moves nearly 1,800 Million Tons/Year (AAR Data) .
I just watched it on the local public tv website. http://www.tpt.org/nova/episode/why-trains-crash-2/ There's some vivid video and a pretty good story line.
The thought of maglev scares me ! In ten years our models might be the same; no rails, switches, no wheels/trucks, pantographs, not even signals (It will all be automated), maybe no engineer, no horn/bell/whistle ! At least, not for contemporary RRing modelers, that is..But maybe it will fail when everyone's watches, cel phones,and lap tops get damaged when on the train ! ..M
It was interesting, but elements were politicized, with Congress being blamed for extending the PTC deadline without the story explaining that PTC technology hadn't been fully developed and that most railroads were trying as best they could to meet a date that was impossible at the outset. Sarah Feinberg (Former Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration) was interviewed too often and her predictable, extended rhetoric of stiffened regulation and ever greater spending was dull viewing. The backstory of the horrific oil train wreck at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec was interesting and informative. I was aware of some of the elements that contributed to the accident, but didn't know how they all combined to set the stage. Just a terrible event.
Yes, it was highly politicized. Yes, Lac Megantic was a horror. What was a greater horror was seeing that program describe in detail how the government brought it to pass, first by forcing the engineer to park the train on the spot because he had reached an arbitrary number of hours operating a train, then by sending its fire department out to ignorantly take it up themselves to shut down the engine (and the source of brake air). Then, of course, they showed a variety of people talking about how more government regulation is on the way to prevent that from happening again. And the program reported that with a straight face, never questioning it a bit. Um, if this much government regulation led to this big a disaster, how much more disaster will more regulation create...? You can tell it's government television. No mention of how California's new high speed rail will wander a zig zag all over the state, probably making it take longer to get from Frisco to Diego than the much more direct route now in use. No mention of how the trip from New York to Chicago on Amtrak takes twenty hours, or twenty-five percent longer than the sixteen hour schedule of private enterprise in the steam age. Government is good, and if it isn't, you can sure count on PBS to cover up the facts the prove it isn't!
It always amazes me just how un-informed folk are about the basics of railroading. Heck, we train nuts knew more as kids than these highly educated folk do today! As for leaky air brakes, yup, seen it. We ha d a unit get set out side to spend the night at a shop I used to work at. Standard rule was handbrakes and chock the wheels. BUT, they set the air and spun the brake wheel a quick turn then went home. The air leaked off and we found it in the transfer table pit in the morning! Thankfully. Also, saw a train roll 120 miles with no one aboard. (Not the famous movie one!) Crew parked it and each thought the other set the brakes up, a bit of independent air, bumped off by the engineers knee while stepping out of the cab. No handbrake by the conductor. They walked over to the shops to pick up more power for the point, and heard the hotbox detector go off 15-20 minutes later as their train coasted backward out of town! Oops! Nobody got hurt in either incident, but it does illustrate that our machines are only machines. Humans can make a mistake that breaks stuff and no amount of regulation can help. Those overly micro managed regs usually just end up creating attitudes that lead to more delays and accisdents. Treat people like they are stupid, and you get stupid.
I had previously read more detailed descriptions of the disasters at Lac-Mégantic and Chatsworth, with those more detailed descriptions revealing more about their causes. I had also previously watched more detailed documentaries on individual passenger train crashes in France and Germany. Taken together, these other articles and documentaries provided a more complete view on what causes train crashes. I found the Nova program to be ok overall, given the stated goal to cover multiple crashes in a limited amount of time. But personally I hunger for more detailed treatments. One can read the Canadian government report on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy here (http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/2013/r13d0054/r13d0054-r-es.asp). This report mentions at least two things I did not see discussed in the Nova show, one being the faulty repair made to the locomotive 8 months before, and another being the one-man crew. We'll never be able to prove that a two-man crew would have prevented or lessened the disaster, but the report notes that a minimum of 9 hand brakes were required by the MMA railroad's own rules, and even this (insufficient) standard was not followed. Have any of you ever worked on a task with a partner, asked that partner if something had been done good enough, and had the partner successfully argue that a more complete job be done? There is also the "many hands make light work" phenomena, which is a point about human nature that makes me cringe when someone argues that two man crews do not add value. Trains magazine had an article on this topic sometime during the last couple years, which pointed out there may be certain routes whose simplicity makes one-man crews acceptable, but a route like train line through Lac-Mégantic does not fit that profile.
Agreed. I recall watching the news with my wife on the day of the Chatsworth, CA collision. The news reporter said that officials were uncertain of the cause. My wife asked me how such a thing could happen and I replied as most of us would, with "It's likely someone ran through a signal." And so it was. I was surprised that Nova didn't cover the terrible Conrail/Amtrak crash of 1987 at Gunpow Interlocking in MD when CR Engineman Ricky Gates and his Brakeman, both with marijuana in their blood, ran through a signal, fouled a main, caused the crash and killed 16 people. Gates survived and served prison time. Per the Nova story, I wonder if the police ever sought the moron who threw the large rock at the SEPTA train in 2015 that set off the rapid chain of events that led to the Amtrak crash? No story I read suggested that the rock-throwing moron was culpable.
I read the official findings when this happened. This was a horrible disaster that was 100% human (not government) error. The engineer knew he was coming up on his 12 hours of service. He decided where to park the train, he decided to not tie down enough hand brakes. He made the bad decision to rely on the airbrakes. Don't blame the government for someone not doing their job correctly. Those deaths lie firmly on that engineers shoulders.
