I am certain it was the Martians. They came down in their space ship, and used their zappo ray guns to derail the train.
Part of the problem in public with this kind of thing is that people have no concept of what a proper investigation entails, and that it doesn't fit into the current "need" for instant answers. It's good that the folks at NTSB are better than that and sound as if they are not letting the hooplah interfere with doing their jobs correctly.
There was actually an interesting piece of information today. One of the famous "unnamed sources" has reported that the cab car was not equipped with an alerter, and the locomotive was. While I do normally give a full measure of skepticism to these anonymous sources, the report also contains confirmation from MetroNorth that they do have cab cars without alerters installed. An interesting piece of information although, as I've said, I'm still not going to accpt any speculation on causes/blame/liability until the NTSB finishes...
News blurbs yesterday were talking about the engineer dozing or nodding off. Cannot recall the exact buzz word they were all using. If that proves true, there'll be a big stink from advocacy groups about hours of service, proper rest, etc.
I've been reading a lot of reports on this accident on flipboard. Found ut intetesting that the union that represents the engineer wad dismissed from the investigation for breaking the NTSB agreement to not comment on findings. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
I think, from what I've seen the NTSB announce so far, that there is nothing resembling a problem with rest or hours of service. It is really strange to hear the information attributed to union reps and the engineer's lawyer, both of which sound pretty damning at this point. The most "out there" I've seen so far, though, belongs to an "expert" CNN dug up whose comments seemed to want to diagnose the engineer with sleep apnea, even though I'd be willing to put money on the guy never having examined the man or his medical records.
Just saying that is what will be the attack tactic. Some group will decide to make us safer, and launch a campaign, regardless. Just like they've been doing with the trucking industry.
I'd like to know how long he had been on duty, how long a break he had between his previous shift and this one, and what shifts he had worked for the previous few days. In my own experience as an engineer railroads try to get as much of their money's worth out of their employees as they can and unions have to fight tooth and nail to get safety taken into consideration. Most of railroad unions actions are for safety cases than anything else.
