>It's going to happen.

For a while. Amtrak still has the qualcomm keboards in its locomotives. We can't use them anymore per the FRA's new EO on electronic devices, but Amtrak is still paying for the service. They've never served any useful purpose in the last 15 years, but Amtrak is still paying for the service.

>The most significant costs will be a function of real time-- quality, communications, storage and retention.

OK, and just who is going to be looking at these videos? The STASI? Don't forget East Germany, 1/2 the population was spying on the other half. The difference here is that you will have to pay the spying half with money from somewhere.

>We have millions of lives riding these trains every year, and they were ill served by that idiot engineer, and the incompetent idiots at Connex/Veolia, so adults are stepping in.

What adults? Surely you aren't referring to the Metrolink/SCRRA bored of directors.

>This is not PTC. It is another layer, in addition to PTC, which will stop the train, reducing future risks of such tragic and prevenable human failure accidents, significantly.

The camera is going to stop the train?? How? The person watching the video is going to press a button in his cubicle? If so, then there will have to be one person in a cubicle for each and every train. Not only that, since they will be participating in the operation of the train, they will fall under the hours of service law. The the million$ in capital investment for the video and electronic equipment would be more wisely spent by putting that second person in the cab with the engineer.

Inward looking engine cams won't solve a thing. All they will do is annoy the employees no end. These are your tax dollars at work and play.

The more complicated you make the system, the less it's going to work. If you want absolutely to prevent Chatsworth-like accidents, then don't set the trains in motion to begin with. Even with Chatsworth, Metrolink is far safer than the LA freeways. If you don't believe me, compare the annual death toll over the last 10 years of the two. I don't hear any such clarion calls for driver cams in people's cars. Think of all the texting and cell phone call tickets the Police could issue. It would certainly solve the current financial problems of the various jurisdictions involved, provided bailout money was used to buy a camera, recording, and transmitting equipment for everyone's car. And well all know bailout money grows on trees; just ask anyone from the Weimar Republic.

The problems are the hiring practises and the morass that the HRD process has become. It's almost impossible to weed out the flakes, and I'm not talking about he Union grievance processes.