>I was the one who brought up the wreck at the Gunpowder River Bridge. --snip-- [and] I brought this up to point out that there is no fool proof way whatsoever to prevent accidents.

Precisely my point all along. There are some readers who seem to think I was trying to defend him, which is definitely not the case.

>> Other than his failure to stop at a stop signal, the biggest single contributing factor to the carnage was Amtrak's removal of the PPR standard derailing track --snip--

>While installed once by signal engineers because of mindless rote repetition, mainline derails became controversial decades ago. It turns out they do much harm, and no good whatsoever. Preferred, is what in some circles is called "the go to hell track" - a lead to capture and stop an errant train, or at least direct the wreckage away from anything else, should you run off the end. --snip--

According to a retired tower operator who worked the tower and patiently explained the situation to me, the PRR had built the plant so there was a crossover between the outside MT and the next one, the outside track then ending in one of these "go to hell tracks". Amtrak eliminated the crossover in favor of a single switch (and no derail--and I agree with you about derails in this sort of situation). Had the "go to hell track" been there when Gates "did his thing", he would have been less likely to wind up dead center in path of the oncoming passenger train. I don't recall any discussion about Amtrak's rearrangement of the plant in the report I read. My personal opinion is that this "go to hell track" should have been retained because it would have lessened, if not eliminated, the disaster to the passenger train.

>Because of this incident alone? - Bull Feathers! ---- Leading up to it were hundreds of similar incidents - in all industries. Indeed, just months after Gunpow, and perhaps the final straw, was the tower operator on the NEC that routed another Amtrak into a work crew doing track alignment.

The Mekoken DE wreck? (I may have misspelled the name).

> -snip- Now, obviously, that is not enough. My I suggest, as I have before, that nothing will do better than just plain old vigilance on the part of everyone - especially management.

Hear hear. The problem is, however, that this isn't a quick fix, and the public wants the fix before the end of the last commercial. The public also wants absolutes like GHW Bush's "zero drug tolerance" policy, very emotionally appealing and uttered for crass campaign purposes, but it has proven to be ultimately unattainable.

The real fix, as you say, is better and more astute managers and employee self-control, but over the last 20 years or more there has been a decline in those who are "people-savvy" and have any appreciable amount of "OJT". Thus, management's ability to instill a good work ethic has been deteriorating markedly. Where I work the smart managers always seem to be driven off with a stick while the dumb ones get completely unjustified pay raises.

Also adding complexity is the new-wave HRD feel-good crapola. There have been several incidents here in which dismissed individuals have gotten their jobs back, and/or large cash settlements, by "proving" some sort of harassment or civil rights issue in court (a few of these people were real "lemons" who had no business being on a railroad). These cases were completely outside the union grievance processes. In another, HRD instructed an RFE that he couldn't speak to nor have any interaction with a certain engineer (the RFE had filed a complaint against the guy, which was determined to be groundless harassment). This was the guy's supervisor, how is he going to supervise this individual?? It's a strange world nowadays.

> -- snip -- until the military releases its restrictions on the higher definition GPS that is currently prohibited for civilian use (for national security reasons). That may never happen. Even if it does, the GPS will still have to be used in conjunction with more conventional cab signally anyway.

I've been given to understand that GPS can't tell which track the train is on in DT and MMT.

> -snip-- [the railroads] demonstrated an unwillingness to do anything they don't absolutely have to do - no matter who dies.

Well, they've always acted this way--and not just with signal systems.

> -- snip -- The only thing that could have prevented Gunpow was for ordinary citizens, such as Ricky Gate, or you and me, to just plain be responsible in our duties, and for managements to be responsible in theirs - check and balance.

Quite agree.