I was watching the news yesterday and one of the new's so called "experts" was an idiot. Just happened to be Fox News, but could have easily been any network.

There was a press conference with the Governor, who said from all appearances it was an act of nature, the rocks falling and blocking the track caused the accident.

The "expert" did bring up slide fences, which I agree might have given warning. But unless it was a known slide area or there was a reasonable possibility of a slide, you can't afford to put slide fences everywhere a rock might fall or roll onto the track. The idiot also mentioned that a ballast integrity monitor would have prevented the accident. I've seen information on these, and as I recall they were developed by someone on the ground in the railroad industry. These are buried but are attached to the tie. If the track washes out or slides enough it pulls it apart triggering the warning. While I could see these would be a valuable investment in potential slide or washout areas, they do absolutely nothing to detect rocks on to of the track.

And of course, the "expert" had to say that had PTC been installed it would have prevented the accident, and then went on to complain about the delay in implementing PTC. Even the FRA has calculated that PTC will only prevent something like 2% of railroad accidents, and that likely the railroads will never recover their investment in accident prevention savings.