>It's that kind of attitude toward serious safety issues, that refuses to take responsibility, because you might be "annoyed", that is at the heart of "enabling" a culture of unprofessional behavior that resulted in this accident.

And you talk about reading comprehension. Nowhere did I say nor imply a bad attitude toward safety issues. What I did do was speak to the impracticality and negative influences of fuzzy-headed schemes. But you have to work in the industry in order to get a handle on what is fuzzy-headed and what isn't.

Have you ever worked for a railroad?

>Let me know where you run? I don't want to be on anything you're operating.

With 41 years and no accidents nor injuries, you'll never know which train I'm on. Huff and puff all you like with self-righteous indignation, but you're on your own.

As I asked before, if you install these cameras, who is going to monitor them? No matter how you want to mealy-mouth it, it's a step toward the E. German SATSI. And The State spying on the citizens is not what has made the USA what it is today, winning WWII and the Cold War, landing on the moon, etc., Cheney-Bush not withstanding.

>This culture of lax safety was enabled by Connex/Veolia's failure to do even minimal rules enforcement.

You were there at Connex watching? Enduring it every day? Rules testing and enforcement are specified by FRA regulations. You can bet all the required paperwork and statistics have always been in order.

If you weren't part of the process, then you have nothing to rely on but the public statements issued, which are replete with a** covering (I do happen to agree with you about lax safety and the safety eyewash process so rampant these days, and not necessarily only at Connex; the difference is that I'm much closer to and more involved in trying to correct the situation than you).

>When you learn to "read" what you quote, we'll discuss PTC? Which you obviously don't understand, or apparently like, either.

"This is not PTC. It is another layer, in addition to PTC," which, as you have stated it, implies the camera/supervision system will have some sort of intervention function, in addition to PTC, to stop the train when something is about to go wrong. I've read as much about PTC as I can get my hands on. So far, it has serious problems with implementation and inter-operability. The Illinois tests have been delayed.

What use is a camera if not to supervise /and/ intervene? If there is to be no intervention, then it has only after-the-fact value, which is of very little use for prevention, particularly in accidents on the scale of Chatsworth. This is the main bone of contention in all the Chatsworth threads on all these discussion sites: after-the-fact quarterbacking.

Never forget these are government entities we're talking about (Metrolink, Amtrak, Connex, etc.). Think of New Orleans, Katrina, and FEMA.

PTC wouldn't have prevented the Chatsworth collision because of timing, proximity to the power switch, and trains speeds. It probably would have reduced the severity, but it wouldn't have /prevented/ it, which is what everyone seems to be caterwauling about: absolute prevention. The same can be said of train stop and cab signals.

>If two people in the cab was the solution, then I wouldn't have visited all of those accident sites where two people were in the cab over the last 40 years? Even with two people in the cab, the camera will make sure one of them isn't snoozing off?

What does matter is the professional work ethic built up over the previous 100+ years which has been all but destroyed since 1985. /That/ is the problem, and it points to a solution. If the second set of eyes is some crusty old head who climbed up your a** when you started f***ing up, then you would learn good work ethics or be out on your a**. That was the way it was when I hired out, but it's no longer the case (hence my reference to the HRD crap). There is no practical replacement for a good work ethic, and management can't command it, top-down. It can try, but top-downism breeds sullen resentment rather than genuine cooperation. A true ethic comes from within those who do the work.

>Thank you for your efforts to save America from becoming a Weimar Republic, whatever the hell that means????

Then perhaps you should look it up before you have to take a wheelbarrow full of paper money to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread because the paper money has devalued so far and so fast. If you ignore history, then you'll be doomed to repeat it.