>i know the length of track between the incoming signal and the engine of #14 was one engine and appoximately 6 1/2 car lengths approximately 575ft

Not if #14 pulled right up to the NB signal of the depot track, which is what they usually do. This makes it just barely 3 passenger car lengths from the SB governing signal to the front drawbar of #14, about 250 - 300 feet. Judging from that photo of where the yellow tiles on the platform on #2 track got damaged, the front of #14's engine was very close to being in it's usual place.

>> You must be a salesman, that or
> Chicken Little.

>naahh not quite ... just railroading since 1974 ...

Well Gramps, I've been railroading since only 1969, so you've got me beat by many, many years. And yes, he could have gone by that signal even with PTC, if only at 6 mph or so.

The big question is where is the money going to come from to pay for all these fancy gadgets? The taxpayers? Why is the Tea Party so active? The RRs themselves? Come on; they're even more rigorous and strict with their cost/benefit analyses that any governmental agency has ever been. This same debate first appeared in the late 1920-early 1930 about cab signals. By WWII (there was a depression on then too), it became apparent that the returns from lessened accident levels came nowhere near to justifying the cost of investment in and maintenance to the apparatus -- other less costly procedures were developed, one of them being the ICC's 79 maximum speed with no cab signals/train stop stipulation of the late 1940s/early1950s. It's the same reason searchlight signals are being so widely replaced with color light ones today: lower maintenance costs.

R. J. McNamara realized this very thing when he killed the US SST effort in the 1960s: the monies needed couldn't be justified by the economics. There was a big hue and cry from the avaiation industry at the time, not to different from the one today over the death of all these HSR projects. With hindlsight, these same avaiation experts today realize that by killing the project, he saved the US avaiation manufacturers from large-scale bankruptcies and other financial problems like the ones which put all the European manufacturers on the ropes.

The OP who asked the question of whether PTC would have prevented this collision, to which the answer is "no" (that 6 mph thing). Nor would it have prevented Chatsworth. In both cases it would have undoubtedly lessened the carnage (#14's engineer is in pretty bad shape, considering), but it wouldn't have absolutely prevented them. And it's the "absolutely" part everyone has their underwear in a twist over. If you want to stop train collisions "absolutely", then stop running the trains altogether.