This was lifted from another railroad-related computer bulletin board:

Quote:

A cutting-edge proposal to focus live video cameras on engineers at the controls of Metrolink trains is drawing fire from employee groups and skepticism from California's senior U.S. senator.

Yeah, I can see where the skepticism would come into play. To pull off a live video broadcast from a moving train requires an incredible amount of effort and logistics. To begin with, you need a helicopter to bounce the video signal to the nearest ground-based transmission tower. The producers of GOOD MORNING AMERICA just gained lots of experience in the art of trying to broadcast a real-time, live video from a moving train, and it wasn’t easy. Check out this article:

Roger Goodman, ABC’s VP for special projects, has successfully transmitted ABC News programming from a submerged nuclear submarine, an aircraft carrier, a cruise ship and a dinghy rocking in the icy North Atlantic.
All his previous challenges pale next to rigging a nine-car Amtrak train to broadcast “Good Morning America’s” “Whistle-Stop ’08” tour live at speeds up to 60 mph. For five days and nights, the tour will move around the eastern U.S., picking up interviews with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain along the way.
Start with the fact that wireless communications from inside a metal train can be tricky. Add the assorted other logistical and technical challenges and you begin to understand the scale of Mr. Goodman’s accomplishment.
To broadcast from the train, “GMA” set up a studio and control room at the center of the train, plus two edit booths and numerous phones and fax machines. The show had to be sure it could receive and transmit video and data without signal glitches.
To pull it off, Mr. Goodman orchestrated an array of logistics that rivals a military operation: “GMA” installed two gyroscopic satellite dishes on the train that will be locked on the Telstar14 orbiter 24 hours a day through Sept. 19, the last day of the trip.
- Two helicopters will hover at 8,000 to 10,000 feet (depending on weather) toward the front and back ends of the train, ready to receive and bounce a signal from the train to the nearest portable satellite antenna should something go amiss with the gyroscopic antennae.
- The show corralled some two dozen satellite phones to assure constant communication with ABC in New York, feeding an unbroken signal into earpieces worn by Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts, Chris Cuomo and Sam Champion during the broadcasts. (Cell phones are too susceptible to loss of signal, although Mr. Goodman has devised a beefed-up cell-phone system that taps into multiple providers as a backup.)
- Mr. Goodman even booked a nurse, because there’s no wiggle room for someone not feeling their best.
“The problem is, it doesn’t matter what [technology] you have, if there are trees overhanging or bridges and tunnels, you’ll lose your satellite signal.”
Earlier that morning, Mr. Champion had done a live mini-tour of the train during “GMA” and the signal crackled and broke into static a few times.
“I lost an interior transmitter for 30 seconds,” Mr. Goodman said.
Aerial Video Systems of California supplied the helicopters as well as the microphones and SteadiCams being used on the train.
Among the 90 people working on the “GMA” project aboard the train will be about 20 Amtrak staffers. Mr. Murphy said ABC is paying Amtrak, which obviously gets a lot of enticing exposure through the week.
Amtrak helped “GMA” find a train car on which to mount the gyroscopic satellite dishes, dusting off a retired diesel cab that had been used for baggage—thus its nickname, the “cabbage” car—and took the top off. Mr. Goodman waterproofed it and mounted the satellite dishes. The signals directed at the helicopters will come from the “cabtenna” in a domed car mid-train.

For the complete article, go here:
[www.tvweek.com]

Quote:

"We're talking about the ability to look into a [locomotive] cab in real time and see what's happening," said Metrolink board member Richard Katz, who Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa placed on the panel after the deadly Sept. 12 crash.

Yeah, sure you are, Mr. Katz. You and all of your cronies will look into this pie-in-the-sky fantasy until you discover how expensive it is and what a logistical nightmare it would be. Then, you’ll settle on a NON-REAL-TIME recording from a black box that will be downloaded at the end of the day.

Quote:

Metrolink appears to be among the first commuter rail systems in the country moving to install the live cameras.

LIVE cameras? Yeah. Sure. Has anyone done a cost study of this? Has anyone spoken to the staff who worked on the GOOD MORNING AMERICA project and discussed the incredible logistics of what’s involved in beaming a LIVE video signal from a moving train?

Quote:

They could be on trains in as little as six months, officials say, part of a series of efforts to reduce the chances of another Chatsworth-like catastrophe.

TRANSLATION: We’re a bunch of moronic politicians attempting to blow smoke up the traveling public’s ass, and if they believe this bullshit, then our work is done.

Quote:

Railroad unions say the surveillance proposal will be costly, ineffective and an invasion of privacy.

True on all three counts.

Quote:

Live video would be chiefly "punitive in nature," he said.

AND expensive AND unrealistic.

Quote:

Diane Feinstein: "I find it hard to understand how adding cameras instead of extra engineers is a more effective way to increase passenger safety on Metrolink. Candidly, I don't understand how an inanimate object like a camera protects against a crash. A camera can't speak out. It can't pull a lever. It can't stop the train. It can't take any action."

For once, a politician who knows what she’s talking about.

Quote:

Live video recently was endorsed by a panel of safety experts after a two-month review of Metrolink operations.

These were people who were being paid to tell the Metrolink board what the Metrolink board wanted to hear. They’re consultants. That doesn’t mean they know anything. It means they’re consultants.

Quote:

Indeed, part of the thinking is that video cameras can eliminate the need for a second crew member in locomotives, a "second set of eyes" precaution that Metrolink officials added to several lines after the Chatsworth accident.

Ah ha. So the truth FINALLY surfaces. This is all about savings on labor costs. Nothing more. My, what a surprise. Maybe this ridiculous real-time live video feed can be monitored and evaluated by HaPoo in New Delhi to save a few more bucks on labor expenses.

Quote:

One important benefit of video and voice recordings is to understand and prevent accidents, said Mark V. Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading a multi-agency inquiry into the Chatsworth collision.

And Metrolink was too chintzy to have any of those devices on their locomotives and cab cars. And they STILL don’t.

I hope all the personal injury lawyers are keenly aware of this.

Quote:

For years, the NTSB has called for crash-proof voice recorders on trains, although Metrolink and many other rail lines don't have them.

TRANSLATION: Metrolink and all those other rail lines ignored the recommendations of the NTSB.

I hope all the personal injury lawyers are keenly aware of this.

Quote:

Now, the agency is urging federal rail regulators to consider making it mandatory for rail lines to install hardened recorders that can capture video and sounds.

TRANSLATION: We (the NTSB) are going to “recommend” one more time, and the FRA and the railroads are going to “ignore” one more time.

Quote:

How the more ambitious plan for live video of crews would work and how the recordings would be reviewed remains to be seen.

Yeah, after you do your homework and discover how difficult it is to beam a real-time, live video feed from a moving train, you’ll have to reconsider A LOT of things.

Quote:

Planners hope to resolve issues cooperatively with employee unions and the company that supplies Metrolink train crews, Connex Railroad, a subsidiary of Veolia Transportation, Oaxaca said.
"We do not want to move forward without completely addressing any concerns they may have," he said.

Well, what if the unions say the whole proposal is unacceptable? Are you still going to move forward?

Q. How can you tell when Francisco Oaxaca is lying?
A. When his lips are moving.

Quote:

Still, key Metrolink board members say they want live video cameras soon. They say it is the most effective way to enforce critical safety rules in the field, including the ban on use of personal electronic devices.

I’d like to be a fly on the wall when they’re presented with the bill for this pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

Quote:

Live video would ensure "no slacking off," said Metrolink board member Keith Millhouse, and foster a "safety culture in [train crews], knowing that they have to operate at 110% efficiency at all times."

Even if they can pull off this Buck Rogers idea, I guess you’d have to have a 1-to-1 ratio of engineers to people who are monitoring the engineer’s behavior if you wanted to make sure these guys were behaving themselves. Or is one dude in New Delhi supposed to monitor 30 TV screens simultaneously? How effective would that be? Wouldn’t it be easier and more effective to just have a second person up in the cab?