>> This also provides a context for the SCRRA rule revision mentioned on another forum,
>> where it now says when you see a yellow, that means slow down RIGHT AWAY!

What a novel idea --- NOT !

I just checked my rulebook collection, including my own and my grandfather's 1958 WP/SN/TS rulebook, and then the 1949 Standard Code of Operating Rules as well. In every single case, whenever a restrictive aspect required preparing for a stop at any signal, the following phrase was included -- "Trains exceeding [some speed] must at once reduce to that speed" "Some Speed" may have been slow speed, medium speed, or a reference to a specific speed in the timetable, depending on the railroad and the aspect. But the requirement was in every single rule book.

Please don't tell me that Metro-Link had not included that long-ago established requirement from the get-go. Indeed, in virtually every signal system design, including Metro-Link's, the minimum permissible signal spacing is predicated on that very action!

How could they justify taking that critical safety requirement out ! Besides, that standard code and every silly little rule in it was written in someones blood! It should never be trifled with! Moreover, Any design engineer or company officer who deviates from established and customary practices, or documented industry standards, without due diligence and peer review in proving safety, lays himself wide open to a federal criminal negligence charge (prison time); should the decision result in injury or death. Even with the due diligence and peer review, there will still be a lot of legal hot water and hell to pay.

That they would stick their necks out like that is unfathomable. Please say it ain't so!

OPB