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Re: Maybe He'll Get His Job Reinstated & Back Pay
Author: Sheila FELA
Date: 03-25-2021 - 16:50
The engineer knew that the 30 MPH curve was out there --- somewhere. He just didn't know EXACTLY where.
In part of his testimony to the NTSB he said, "I wasn't where I thought I was."
When he climbed into the locomotive cab, he must have thought he had received adequate training over the new route and he must have thought he was quslified over the territory.
When he was climbing out of the wreckage, he must have had a different opinion.
In the NTSB report, you can read the transcript of the conversation between the engineer and the student conductor. About twenty seconds before the wreck, they were talking about equipment assignments and which sets of equipment and crews protected certain schedules. In his testimony before the NTSB, the student conductor made a fool of himself trying to define the difference between an absolute and an intermediate signal. He was probably a distraction more than anything else.
The fact that a Road Foreman was not in the cab on the inaugural trip places an amount of egg on Amtrak's face that they cannot explain away.
As with most big wrecks, it was a failure on many levels.
In part of his testimony to the NTSB he said, "I wasn't where I thought I was."
When he climbed into the locomotive cab, he must have thought he had received adequate training over the new route and he must have thought he was quslified over the territory.
When he was climbing out of the wreckage, he must have had a different opinion.
In the NTSB report, you can read the transcript of the conversation between the engineer and the student conductor. About twenty seconds before the wreck, they were talking about equipment assignments and which sets of equipment and crews protected certain schedules. In his testimony before the NTSB, the student conductor made a fool of himself trying to define the difference between an absolute and an intermediate signal. He was probably a distraction more than anything else.
The fact that a Road Foreman was not in the cab on the inaugural trip places an amount of egg on Amtrak's face that they cannot explain away.
As with most big wrecks, it was a failure on many levels.
