> There can be a lot of reasons why a crew gets by a red signal. Not all are the crew's fault.
I think I posted what I thought was the most likely cause of getting by a red innocently.

Idle and/or misinformed speculation is pernicious and not constructive.

>I'm sure there must be myriad scenarios no one would ever think of until they actually happen. But could you please explain how the brakes could somehow unexpectedly fail unless the air was "pissed away" or the brake test was skipped, letting an erroneously setup brake line go unnoticed, or something like that. I think I saw a movie plot once where ice formed in the train line blocking the dumping of air. But no one I know ever believed that was possible - just more hollywood babble.

The Westinghouse-based automatic air brake system has never failed in its entirety as a brake system, individual components, yes, but not the system as a whole. With the train which went into WUT, an angle cock about three cars behind the locomotive had jiggled closed. While lawyers would undoubtedly argue the point, it wasn't a system failure because had a trainman pulled the air in a car behind the closed angle cock, the brakes would have worked. Unless, on the other hand, the air in the brake pipe leaked off slowly enough, then pulling the air wouldn't have had any effect. I don't recall whether the ICC report is clear on this point or whether it discussed any trainmens' actions.

>And if it actually was your fault, responsibility for the error should be honestly taken - just as it should be in any other industry.

What you describe isn't the real world. Why do you think we have the World's Second-oldest Profession?

>And though I did not mention it, management should not be so damn adversarial as was implied either.

It's part of human nature. "They" are In Charge, and the more weak-minded and insecure are dedicated to proving so.

>Also, that an actual deliberated investigation to find out the facts before someone gets beeched or fired, is not so common.

On the SP, an investigation would be held, a determination made, then you would either be exonerated or dismissed (usually about two weeks later). On the Santa Fe, an investigation would be held, and you would be handed a termination check as you headed out the door after the investigation.

>As to whether unions help of hinder that cause much, I can't say for sure; except that they have clearly failed in most other industries.

You sound anti-union.

>At my last job, I was in the union and participated, at first as a shop steward and later on as a member of the "Contract Research Committee". In my nine years on the committee, never did I hear of any serious effort to obtain any such benefits. Most things of that sort were usually traded away in bargaining, for other things (need I say it - usually for special perks for the union big shots).

This is an internal Union problem, and the membership corrects the situation from time to time. How about the nefarious goings-on in the UMW during the 1960s (or thereabouts). Unions are no more perfect than management, both of which are comprised of people with all their failings. When the BLE turned down it's Amtrak contract in 2008, it was a grass roots thing. As a result, all engineers got full 10 years' back pay instead of a piddling 5 grand signing bonus.

>Getting by a red isn't necessarily an air issue. For example, .. .. .. lack of crew familiarity on the district and the railroad refusing to provide a pilot, --snip--

This is precisely what caused the grinder train runaway on Donner Summit in 2006. The "engineer" wasn't a certified locomotive engineer; the pilot supplied by the UP not only wasn't a locomotive engineer, he had never been over the district before. He protested vigorously, but was ordered out of town by "Choo-Choo", the overbearing, egotistical MTO in Sparks. Needless to say, being forced to go without a pilot is no longer an issue, and the FRA has revised the regs covering this sort of "M/W train".