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Re: Amtrak Cascades 501 on Dec. 18, 2017 - BOB2 says it was only the phone
Author: BOB2
Date: 03-25-2021 - 13:38
Either you take control and run the train, or the train "will" run you, it's just physics....
This crew and their supervision in the WA accident weren't stellar... Call signals on a passenger train...Nah... Communicate on the speed restriction... Nah... Intervene when no action was taken... Nah... How many folks were riding with him? Distracted and poor professionalism, and a lax safety culture were all mentioned if I recall correctly from the accident investigation reports....?
I could pretty easily keep up with the best of yard crews, slowlyu plodding and dogging it on the back spurs of Alameda Street.... But, when I got sent out to relieve a mainline train, it upped my game, because you need to be in control and on your game....
I remember, in my misspent youth at the tender age of 18, working the LA extra board where mostly you hostled engines at place like the Mummy shack, but whenever I caught a pool job, I'd be hot to run a real "train"... "Can I run..." I enquired of one west pool engineer I was firing for.. And, I'll never forget his reply: "Son, any fool can run one of these things, they pay us the really big money for being able to stop them...."
I actually think that one "distraction" problem, which I have witnessed on the old State Street/now SGV Metrolink Sub down the middle of I-10, is he may have also just been "spaced out" sub consciously as he was "pacing" the adjacent I-5... As we all find ourselves doing sometime while "bored" in flowing traffic... It's why many speed differential traffic accidents occur, so welcome to why collision avoidance technologies will save lives, as PTC would have done here, or in Philadelphis.. The upright hairless chimp can just screw up, and quite often does...
Welcome to why you want good union representation... Amtrak being partially at fault for it's own pathetic record of laxity in this sad tale, just washed it's hands..
Either you take control and run the train, or the train "will" run you...
And, some of us who did this for living, and followed that basic philophy, some of whom also post right here on AP, now all have a better safety records than his guy...
This crew and their supervision in the WA accident weren't stellar... Call signals on a passenger train...Nah... Communicate on the speed restriction... Nah... Intervene when no action was taken... Nah... How many folks were riding with him? Distracted and poor professionalism, and a lax safety culture were all mentioned if I recall correctly from the accident investigation reports....?
I could pretty easily keep up with the best of yard crews, slowlyu plodding and dogging it on the back spurs of Alameda Street.... But, when I got sent out to relieve a mainline train, it upped my game, because you need to be in control and on your game....
I remember, in my misspent youth at the tender age of 18, working the LA extra board where mostly you hostled engines at place like the Mummy shack, but whenever I caught a pool job, I'd be hot to run a real "train"... "Can I run..." I enquired of one west pool engineer I was firing for.. And, I'll never forget his reply: "Son, any fool can run one of these things, they pay us the really big money for being able to stop them...."
I actually think that one "distraction" problem, which I have witnessed on the old State Street/now SGV Metrolink Sub down the middle of I-10, is he may have also just been "spaced out" sub consciously as he was "pacing" the adjacent I-5... As we all find ourselves doing sometime while "bored" in flowing traffic... It's why many speed differential traffic accidents occur, so welcome to why collision avoidance technologies will save lives, as PTC would have done here, or in Philadelphis.. The upright hairless chimp can just screw up, and quite often does...
Welcome to why you want good union representation... Amtrak being partially at fault for it's own pathetic record of laxity in this sad tale, just washed it's hands..
Either you take control and run the train, or the train "will" run you...
And, some of us who did this for living, and followed that basic philophy, some of whom also post right here on AP, now all have a better safety records than his guy...
