Anonymous postings may occur account livelihood may be at stake...It's too bad, but a string of attorneys are much more powerful than the average bloke... Initial Terminal Air Test would have been completed at Cemex-Victorville; the tapes record these things and it would be foolish to proceed without this. Also, westbound down the Tehachapi grade would exercise braking conditions; thereby giving indication of potential troubles. Crews routienly inform each other of problematic conditions whenever possible, mostly to keep the carrier at bay with their ops test failure mentality... Westbound approach to WBCS E. Kismet is around a moderate right-hand curve- long distance recognition of approaching conditions not really available...it was, indeed, the Conductor who was coming down off a Coke high...Alerter spacing is predictable and lengthy; without a doubt plenty of time to get in trouble under a less-than clear block signal.
The engineer is purportedly with a spotty to poor track record of rules violations and was alleged to have been restricted to the yard at Richmond. Manpower shortages apparently required him to mark up to the extra board just a few weeks prior to this event. No paper trail to supprt this often heard claim, however.