John Wrote:
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> The reason it takes so long is over regulation by
> the federal government and managers that are
> afraid to make decisions! Years ago a
> stationmaster or yardmaster and a switch crew
> would have handled with the road crew and probably
> no one would have been even aware of the
> incident....of course there were no college grads
> just RR men who came up through the ranks.


In this case it ultimately came down to UP track supervisors inspecting and releasing the main for the train to make a reverse move. It seems logical to make sure the track that was involved in a derailment was in proper shape for a train full of passengers to traverse. I'm assuming you would be ranting about those same men had Superliners full of people ended up leaning due to reversing through a broken rail/frog/etc. It's the same procedure when a vehicle ends up fouling the tracks off a crossing and potentially damaging the track structure.