I've been qualified for running over a segment "over the phone" by a road foreman, and without PTC, and by using the information provided by way side speed signs, signals, and using gradient charts, and good training on train handling, never once crashed any of those trains, in 18 years of service........?

It seems to me that these folks actually received a great deal of training on this new route from what I've heard. And, handling a passenger train, with much less tonnage, better braking, and better dynamic braking, is much easier than controlling and balancing a freight train, from my experience.

I too, could also be considered a "railroad investigator" by this loosey goosey "definition" because I too, have been used as an expert witness for an FELA law firm. That does not make me an NTSB qualified investigator, nor are many of the RR FELA investigators that I've known. But, I've known several people who are NTSB qualified investigators in my career.

Any claims by this source are inherently biased, since he is representing the employee's injured, who may have been involved the failures which caused this accident. So, I'd really take this sources pronouncemnets with a healthy dose of skepticism, since he is "spinning" this yarn in their client's interest.