Right on Charlie, signals are there for your protection. An old engineer told me early on in my career that a restricting signal is the worst indication you will ever get in your career,it tells you nothing except you may pass it without stopping. When PC removed the train control on the main line we came out of Goshen ,IN. and a west bound came within 15 car lengths of hitting our caboose. This is what people don't realize is that PTC is a mammoth undertaking and must work without a flaw the first and all times. LEW
This is gonna sound confrontational, and i really dont mean it to be, but... ... your missing the point. Take a breath, let the real caseworkers decide if its human error or geographical or equipment or some combination there of. If it is human error, et a judge decide the punoshment, not alynch mob. Where are you seeing this testimony? And less to the point, why are you so gung-ho on crucifying this guy? Its an ACCIDENT, its not like he woke up one day and said I wanna kill some people. Sure, punish him, he did physical and emotional damage, but he's A) human B ) gonna have to live with what he did. You tell me hes not allowed to zone out, but can you honestly tell me you've NEVER done anything boneheaded while driving? Never looked at the radio and missed a speed limit change? Never sneezed and drifted over a line, never done anything that for a brief second changed your field of play? And anyway, if this testimony is from anywhere other than the NTSb, i'd be very surprised hes talking to anyone, and being allowed to talk to press. This sounds like tabloid talk to me. Sorry, maybe i should hold my tongue. Can i make it up to you with this? Sent from my LG-LS970 using Tapatalk
Well said, well said! Absolutely no excuses, but when you drive the same stretch of interstate every day for many years it is easy to zone out. I would imagine it would be the same case here. I'll bet this was a veteran engineer who just plain and simple screwed up. Why was he doing 82? Assuming track speed was only 70 leading up to that curve, that would be significant zone out. Hard to believe there is not an alerter system on board the locomotive that even from the opposite cab would have shut it down at some point unless it was either tampered with or a maintenance oversight.
Morgan (above). The difference between driving my car and driving a train : He was hired to do it 100% perfectly as there are other human lives and a billion dollars in equipment at stake. I drive when and where I want, alone, unpaid for it and yet still remain relaxed but vigilant. When I do have a rider I am extra careful. Safety is job 1..I am not saying to give the man the chair. It was not premeditated murder. But " I zoned " is an admittance of guilt, a confession right up front....70-80 in a 30 ! What else could it be ? The traction motors do not speed up by themselves. And even if it was brake failure it still would have happened at 30 MPH or less, not 80 ! This is going to come down to human error, period ..! If they hired me for the job at 66 years of age, I still would never " zone out ". Every run would have safety on my mind at all times. It's a rolling battle ship ! Oh, but there's that other stupid, senseless one, that Italian cruise ship captain who too must have zoned ..Really ! I mean, Really !! I wouldn't be surprised if they found out this train engineer also, was on his cell phone like the Chatsworth travesty.
A couple of things to consider: Even when we do our best, it is the nature of humans that lapses can happen. That's why a cause for accidents is often listed as "operator error." Personally, I don't know of anyone that hasn't had a momentary lapse of some sort. But again, there are people with the training and resources to determine the cause and/or blame for this mishap. In terms of the oft-referenced quote attributed to the engineer, it might just be worth remembering that the legal term for that right now is "hearsay." In other words, there are people that have stated that he made that statement. So far as I know, no investigator or reporter has directly attributed those words to him.
signal indications I totally agree with what that old head hogger told you. I have a friend who is a NS engineer,he lives in Ohio but we have visited a couple of times when he was on pool freight and had a decent layover rest in Chicago. He told me something about restricted speed scenarios. He said that when he had a student and had a need to travel at restricted speed that it was to be at "banner speed". In other words to travel at a speed expecting the testing banner to be in place around the next curve or out of the line of sight. I thought that a good hint to give a student. Charlie
