> . . . .so as not to "offend" Members of Congress, who seem to take a lot of money from cell
> phone companies? What kind of people have we become, that we would engage in, or accept
> this behavior, are we nuts?


A very good question, indeed!

But this insanity pervades our whole culture anymore. Indeed, every aspect of American life is now regulated; the power of government, exercised at the behest of, and for the benefit of, some specific company or special interest group. But Mea Culpa, it is us that keeps voting for such people.

What kind of people have we become, you ask?

Simple; blinded and foolish; lulled to sleep and a false security (gov’t will protect and provide); easily deceived by every say-gooder that comes along; blindly accepting every silly politically correct notion that we hear; and all the while, we too look out only for number one, rather than for the common good.

“We have met the enemy – and he is US!”

Our continued suffering is caused only by our own continued corruption.

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What is truly scary though, in the context of this railroad accident, is the notion that Senators and even the NTSB, can be gotten too by specific companies peddling inferior solutions to a problem; that laws can get passed mandating a particular brand or technology that is clearly inferior.

Even scarier, is the threat of lawsuits by certain Senators, and this company, because MetroLink opted for a different but superior and more reliable solution. One which is already available off the shelf right now (no waiting) and much more easily implemented. Others have opted for the same – such as UTA’s FrontRunner. Are they to be sued also, even though theirs is up and running, already protecting the public - and in a better and much more reliable way. --- Scary is the thought!

The new law merely should have required that a safe and reliable means of train protection be employed, but not dictate specific brands or even specific technologies. Indeed, such a law was already put on the books 60-70 years ago, but unfortunately, was only applied to trains exceeding 79mph. What should have been done, was to apply mandatory continuous signal and braking enforcement, to all trains on any track with any speed limit above 35mph – regardless of the technology or brand used.

But NOoooo! All we got was just more special interest corruption!

And yes, the NTSB has been gotten too as well - it seems! As they have been advocating specific technologies (these inferior ones) for a few years now. I found out why, when I questioned an associate who is on the national committee for A.R.E.M.A., as to where the NTSB’s advocacy of PTS (originally a brand name) comes from. Yup - You Got it! -- Pressure from politicians, who were paid campaign contributions by companies peddling the stuff!

Of course, it can not be the proper place of the NTSB, to advocate for or against anything – but to just find out the dry cold facts of an incident. Speaking as one who has been professionally involved in many rail accident investigations, the minute any fact finding search starts to advocate anything specific, bias has surely crept in. And when bias creeps into any scientific or engineering effort, say amen to finding of the truth, or to more human progress of any sort!

So why do I continue to believe these technologies to be inferior? - Also Simple!

I have yet, in my talks with signal engineers across the country in the course my employment, found any compelling reasons to believe otherwise, and indeed much opposition. It’s always the same story – it has failure modes that are not safe. It therefore cannot be relied upon for safety, but surely will be. And as people get lulled by a false sense of security, accidents will continue – just caused by machinery, rather than by human error. The consensus continues to be, that such systems will be very useful for "non-vital" functions related to movement authorities and restrictions (those still done by human interaction); but will not ever be as reliable for safety related uses.

The WMATA accident illustrates this cold hard unyielding reality. That excessive reliance upon machinery that requires skillful maintenance and calibration in order to remain safe and reliable, can lead to a lulling effect; causing the required human skill and diligence to slack off, or even to be put off by a greedy penny pinching or otherwise biased management.

The jury is still out on whether that happened here. But what is certain, is that machine error, in this case failing to detect the presence of a train, will cause just as deadly an accident as human error would have. Therefore, it is pointless to merely replace the potential for human error, with the potential for machinery error; that can itself cause accidents just the same.

The endeavor to prevent human error with machinery is nevertheless at the core of my profession. It is critical then, that we design and maintain the machinery to also prevent its own faults, failures and limitations, from producing any hazard. Any fault or failure whatsoever, must therefore result in a more restrictive aspect or condition – never allowing or causing a less restrictive one, even when failed. The technology mandated in the new law is well known in the industry, as not being currently capable of meeting this tough standard – not even close.

Btw, PTS/PTC would not have helped in the WMATA case, as all such systems still depend upon track circuits, the same as WMATA’s ATC system does. And they will for the indefinite future; as no CBTC technology (or any other) yet exists that comes even close to the reliability and safety record of Dr. Robinson’s coded closed loop track circuit. Indeed, according to people I talked to at the FRA, loss of shunt directly causing a collision hasn’t happened in decades, and they sent me the data to back that up.

But somehow, we still failed to meet that tough standard at WMATA. The profession, and the industry, has as a result of the WMATA accident, already put themselves ON ALERT to make sure due diligence in design, calibration and maintenance gets done. But the jury is still out. Lack of such diligence may not be the cause of WMATA’s track circuit failure; but instead, some subtle previously unheard of physics technicality in the hardware may be the cause.

So - Hopefully, NTSB will look at all these probable factors, both human and physical. If they remain unbiased and un-pressured by political hackery, together with the national laboratories the NTSB employs, the true cause will be discovered, wherever the cards fall. Only a thorough, honest and unbiased fact finding study will enable us to ever hope to prevent a recurrence.

OPB