Interesting perspective.

The early NTSB reports just determined the cause. Now, they make recommendations to prevent a reoccurance, some of which are justifiable while others are impracticable. Yet, the NTSB has no regulatory authority, so it is up to the industry itself, FRA and other applicable agencies to make the changes. If the FRA issues an Emergency Order, then they have the authority (and responsibility) to enforce it. But a Safety Advisory can be ignored without immediate consequence.

But, if something similar happens again and it ends up in court, then the plaintiff's attorney can make the argument that his poor client Darwin Dumass was not responsible for his own actions or common sense and the big, bad (rich) railroad was at fault.

Now for the interesting question to consider. Can we always afford to be truly "safe"? Our government has become convinced that we need to be protected, sometimes from ourselves, from anything that can hurt us. The railroad industry and regulators have adopted the mantra "all accidents are preventable", which I disagree with. The only acceptable accident and injury rate is zero, but they cannot be outlawed because they are inevitable. There will always be situations that are beyond reason to predict or expect that will lead to an accident.

Consider two of the most recent major rail accidents. Lac Megantic was likely the simple failure to properly secure the train, with many contributing factors. The only thing really new was the yet unexplained volatility of crude oil which does need to be dealt with. Spuyten Duyvil was the failure of the engineer to properly control their train's speed. (Oddly, both situations were left to the engineer basically working alone.)

What needs to be considered is that the wholesale application of an electronic big brother may help prevent accidents, but it does insert new concerns - the reliability of the design and maintenance of the system's hardware and software which includes its own human factor, becoming dependent upon the system and the inability to promptly recognize and react to failures (something the commercial air industry is now dealing with), and the idea that a lower skilled worker can be used because of the electronic oversight. We are already seeing the widespread use of electronics (RCO for instance) because it is considered cheaper than paying skilled employees.

The supply portion of the industry is a huge issue in trying to be compliant or safe, especially for the smaller customer. Try calling Wabtec or many other suppliers - they have no inventory and if they bother to call you back the common parts you need are 4-6 weeks out, or more. A friend ordered a new FRED for a shortline in July, and just was notified that they are finally shipping the HEU.

At what point can we afford to stay in business? If the government continues to demand investment to meet new regulations, there must be an economic justification either in reduced liability or cost savings, or the expense must be passed on to the customers. For a small railroad such as Shortline Sammie or contractor like myself, at some point we will be forced out of business because we cannot meet the government demands against a potential danger that has less of a chance than getting hit by lightning.

It is becoming obvious that the PTC implementation that is supposed to prevent all these accidents will be delayed. Wasn't it a smart idea to demand a system that does not yet exist, using a radio system that the bandwidth was not made available? And what happens if there are some huge sunspots or sabotage?