Bob2 may not be in charge - but MOTHER NATURE IS !

And Mother Nature often extracts the death penalty - sometimes just for being stupid - with no appeal possible. The laws of physics are absolute and cannot be softened in any way by mankind - And God Won't!

I repeat - Where safety and signal systems are concerned; "high speed" means any speed that does not permit a complete stop at a safe braking rate, within one half sight distance; to any obstruction, broken rail, kink, washout, misaligned or unlocked switch, or opposing movement. Feel free to add to that list any other conditions that might present a hazard also.

If no warning (red signal) is present, and you can't see the hazard before you must set the brakes - death will often follow.

Given that braking distance goes up by the square of the speed, you are not going very fast at all when you can no longer safely stop within sight. If you exceed that speed with no signals, or some sort of train control system that can see the requisite distance beyond what you can see; you ARE running on blind ignorant hope that nothing is amiss up ahead. And just because the Feds tolerate it - does not mean you won't die doing it. Do you really trust your gov'mint that much?

Still - it is a stupid death riddled way to operate a train. I hope that you or anyone else with your cavalier attitude do not run trains near me - or mine.


Perhaps, you would do well to study the history of railway signaling, and especially the desperate search for safety that took many decades - all while tens of thousands died because of running trains just as you advocate. That epic story far surpasses the current puny efforts at PTS.

And don't think that Dr Robinson's invention of the closed loop track circuit fixed it all right away. It just made the automatic block signal possible. Still at issue was how a competitive business could afford the high expenditures needed (for the times), while at the same time their competitors didn't bother. Such a laudable efforts always put such a high minded company at a serious disadvantage in the capital markets. So installation languished.

It wasn't until the politics of frequent train wrecks finally boiled over and forced government action; exercising the Commerce Clause by requiring installation on all but the lightest traffic lines. That equalized the playing field, since all competitors now had the same requisite costs for signaling. Wall street greed was now effectively out of the equation. Widespread installation, quickly followed by a steep decline in the national fatality rate was now a reality.

Their are a number of books covering this history - some probably now online for free. I recommend that you research and study it in depth - as any railroad professional should. It will give you deep respect for the physics of your profession and a reverence for the efforts of our progenitors.