whatever Wrote:
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> When you've been in the industry for decades, deductive logic is quite simple...when you are alone in the cab, DISTRACTIONS ARE A MINIMUM...It is fact he was not alone. It is deductive logic HIS ATTENTION WAS DISTRACTED when he went by the speed sign.

Part of the job is not allowing yourself to be distracted. When you ARE distracted, ugly things can happen, as we've seen.

> I throw blame at all three of the damn idiots in the cab...(three that were documented to be in the cab...)

My information said there were just two people in the cab.

As trainjunkie noted on that "other" discussion board:

If you know your territory, you don't need lineside signs except, perhaps, mile markers. They are convenient. They are helpful. But they cannot be relied upon.

He has a good point. Speed boards should not be relied upon because what's to prevent a vandal from removing a speed board? If an engineer has to rely on speed boards to run his train over a given territory, then he obviously doesn't know the territory very well and disaster could develop if a speed board comes up missing.

There was an engineer working in New Mexico a few years ago and he almost put a train in the ditch because he wasn't familiar enough with the territory. He was used to running through the area in daylight. Well, circumstances eventually developed where he had to run through the area at night. It was a close call. You have to know EXACTLY where the curves are. Not APPROXIMATELY. And if you have to rely on speed boards, then you probably shouldn't be running the train. PTC has saved the day on several occasions but the flip side is that it may eventually allow trains to be fully automated, like what the iron ore haulers in Australia are perfecting. Railroad managements want to get rid of human engineers as quickly as possible. Fully automated systems never lay off for the opening day of deer hunting season or a kid's high school graduation. You don't need a "high-viz" attendance policy for a robot.

They shouldn't have been talking about crew and equipment assignments when they were about twenty seconds away from disaster. The student conductor should have been assisting in figuring out where the speed restrictions were in relation to the mileposts. During his testimony before the NTSB, he had trouble conveying the difference between an absolute and an intermediate signal.