"We" is the citizens of the US through our regulatory agencies. "We" is also folks, like you and me, who work or have done work in the RR industry, and now have adopted a new practice, which will hopefully prevent something like this in the future.

And, I've contributed my share of changes, like the editorial I helped ghost wrote on the need for modern PTC systems, after Chatsworth... Or, the traffic data you get on your I-phone.... Not to mention a few jobs on those intercity and commutes you used to work... Or, pointing out to a certain Board member that the Rotem "safety car" coupler and drawbar should not really have dropped under the train from the impact of a light duty truck and a light farm trailer... which took those off of the point real fast (to be fair, I wasn't the only one that noticed that). I think you were on here for that discussion, weren't you?

Is that enough?

Now, I'm not exactly a fan of how they've chosen to implement PTC, I am not a fan of the kind of "system" architecture they've chosen to use to do it, with mostly proprietary driven systems. Which I think contributed a great deal to the complexity, costs, and delays, with FRA depending way too much on vendor input to drive their decisions. Some of it was inevitable, as the RR's were in the stone age with regard to reliable communications, and other infrastructure necessary to implement PTC.

As Mick Jagger once put it: " You can't always get what you want..."

PTC is almost complete and will be another level of improvement in the relative safety from these kind of incidents for all of "us". Including hopefully incidents like this one..

Then, we'll find out how many "holes" in the architecture and poorly defined "user needs" there are that we hadn't thought through, or accounted for, and what gaps we didn't fill, and we'll be writing new work arounds, and/or rules for those, too.... And, if we're all real lucky, we'll all probably all muddle on, somehow...

And, as Rosanna Rosannadanna used to say: "Its's always something..."

Now, if "we" could have only required visible reflective targets on mainline switches, "at least", on "higher speed" (I must remember to use the politically correct versions of the definition of "high speed") mainlines, instead of the nonsense from FRA that OPRRMS cited, that Amtrak crew might well still be alive...

Would of, should of, could of, don't count for s#it though, do they?

Geeeez Loooweeeeeeze Zark???? What did I do to pull your tail..?