"
The Amtrak engineer at the controls during Tuesday’s deadly Philadelphia derailment — whose train inexplicably sped up to 106 mph going into a sharp curve — had been ranting online for years about the perils of fatigued train operators."
“Everyone wants an extension to hours of service to avoid inconvenience, but what will you say when the crew that’s been on duty for longer than 12 hours accidentally falls asleep and passes a stop signal and rear-ends a loaded hazmat train, killing dozens or hundreds of people?” wrote an online train forum member who identified himself as Brandon Bostian in some posts. (read more)
Elsewhere in related news. The safety controls that could have prevented the train wreck where installed, but the bureaucracy had not turned it on yet. From the NYT...
The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the wreck, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. (read more)
11 comments:
B-b-but Cher says Rethuglikkans...
One question, does this guy belong to a union?
Rhetorical question, yes?
No wonder he lawyered up while still in the hospital and now "can't remember" what happened.
Agenda-fixated narcissists should not be driving the train. I'm just sayin'
AllenS said...
One question, does this guy belong to a union?
He sure does. Has anyone gotten an answer to the obvious of why he was going 102 mph?
Vengeance will solve the problem. Only union members have human needs like sleep, etc.
Humans make human errors. It is as simple as that.
The only thing that is surprising is that it doesn't happen more often.
What Trooper York said. That an why on this green earth is a train with nearly 150 people aboard capable of 100 mph in urban areas only governed by one engineer? In this case, the unions were right, the deletion of one man in the engine would result in disaster sooner or later. If for no other reason than one of the two could be disabled by stroke, heart attack, burst aneurysm, or whatever and there's now no one to take over. The savings by the one man rule have been nice, but only by good luck...when things go wrong, you need two. Think: the crazy loon who tricked his counter part in to leaving the cockpit so he could kill everyone on his plane. That occurred solely because they removed the third officer in the cockpit, so if anyone had to leave it there was only one in the cockpit, not still two in control.
Was it a mistake?
The "mistake" was going to a one engineer railroad engine, just as only two men, qualified to fly, in a airplane cockpit...with rules allowing one to leave even temporarily. A flight attendant substitute, or not, could not have brought the plane down safely or overpowered the berserk pilot.
I think the technological advances in motor transport, in cars, trains, and planes, is great...until they fail. My better half has a lovely less than 2 year old high end SUV and the "automation" just fails or goes blank erratically.
Bet my life on it? No thank you. I may have trouble buying my next vehicle...I demand full manual control for everything, minimal automation, even for Heat & A/C. I am not so demented in my dotage yet to be unable to handle thermostatic controls...or brakes, etc.
Please, someone still build KISS vehicles...and put some KISS sense back in to public transport controls as well.
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