Amtrack derailment
I don’t have much commentary or speculation right now, because we know so little about the causes. What we do know is that at least six people are dead and 146 injured in the derailment that affected the entire seven cars and engine of the Washington-to-NY Amtrak train. It occurred as the train rounded a curve in Philadelphia, resulting in a scene of carnage and devastation.
People don’t expect this to happen on the train, and they are correct that it is highly unusual. But the statistics don’t matter for the vicitms today, because it happened to them.
I’m guessing ISIS.
Bad.
I dropped my son, (a Marine Security Guard, home for a break before leaving for his last post) at the airport yesterday morning and noticed a much greater police presence at the airport than usual, including groups with canines. We both commented on it, and he said every day there are alerts going on. In 1996 we were in Paris at the time of the plane crash out of JFK. Since that time, I haven’t trusted the government to tell the public the truth behind the events.
I have heard and read this; the curve where it happened has a 50mph speed limit, and the train was doing 100. I’m guessing it was at least 75.
I don’t think train wrecks are “highly unusual”. My father was killed in one when I was only a child. The cause was operator error like I’m sure this one will turn out to be.
The normal out come will be that the engineer fell asleep.
This is a chronic hazard — that only gets worse as the cab gets ever more automated.
No-one EVER fell asleep running a steam locomotive. That beast requires the engineer — and fireman — to jump around like monkeys through their entire shift.
Simply nothing is automated.
In contrast, a modern Diesel-electric locomotive is an over grown Prius… and about as repetitious as a kid’s train set in the basement diorama.
http://gotnews.com/breaking-gotnews-ids-gay-activist-train-engineer-who-caused-amtrak-crash/
Engineer was an activist.
Engineer is Brandon Bostian, 32, white.
Train was going 106 mph [!!!] when it hit the curve. Every single car flew violently off the track. Some were crumpled like they were made out of Reynolds Wrap.
Speed limit on that curve is 50 mph. This is the same thing that happened at Spuyten Dyvil, NYC: engineer was going Twice the posted speed. People died. That engineer was just “suspended without pay,” but no other punishment, no criminal negligence, no nothing.
What did people expect when they put in charge a bunch of union slave runners.
Similar to the train wreck in Spain several years back.
Which means they’ll be checking his cell phone.
Talked to a retired engineer a couple of years ago. He said there’s a gizmo in the cab you have to hit every so often or the train automatically slows down. They tried to tie it to the windshield wipers but they couldn’t make that work.
There was a dead-man pedal on some models where, while seated, you kept your foot on a pedal and if you stopped the pressure the train would slow down.
I guess there’s nothing as soporific as watching two parallel lines coming at you, widening and then disappearing under the front of the engine, listening to the perfectly rhythmic clicking underneath.
Truck drivers say, to maintain alertness, a problem for them, you have to keep your eyes moving. Not looking straight ahead all the time.
Decades ago, there was a TV show called Man and The Challenge featuring a fictional Human Factors Institute and related detective work. One case had trucks driving off the road into a high-tension power line pole. The key was they’re driving along a perfectly straight road in a perfectly flat desert and then they see this power line as a Thing. Their eyes fix on it and…they miss the curve. I will bet the actual item is just south of Vegas. Fortunately, I had company and had had a lot of sleep.
Zoning out could actually be an issue here.
A doctor I know used to ask people with possible sleep troubles if, on the expressway, they’d either missed the exit they wanted or saw it instants before they needed to take it. IOW, zoned out from fatigue without being asleep.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/minor-comment-on-current-day-americans-and-loyalty-to-country-christianity-and-the-lefts-messiah-death-cult/
Another composition example of where good intentions don’t matter. Results and behavior do.
“there’s a gizmo in the cab you have to hit every so often or the train automatically slows down. They tried to tie it to the windshield wipers but they couldn’t make that work.” Richard Aubrey
I can’t think of one valid reason why that could not be made to work.
I realize that this is Amtrak, a famously money-losing proposition but engineers ‘zoning out’, falling asleep, medical problems, losing consciousness or criminal negligence resulting in operating at too high a speed for a given curve were only insurmountable problems 25+ years ago.
GPS technology and computer software could easily be deployed on every train, so that it is impossible to approach a curve at an unsafe speed.
Setting the ‘gizmo’ mentioned above so that the engineer has to (perhaps every five minutes) move from his station to reset the gizmo with an alarm of increasing decibels, if reset is not activated and automatic stoppage of the train, if the engineer is unresponsive with an automatic alert to management is an obvious solution.
Amtrak is a government subsidized operation. So lack of money is not a viable excuse. Money pinching bureaucracy, lack of imagination (we’ve always one it this way) and criminal negligence are directly responsible for this tragedy.
I do not know, of course, how performance of engeneer at Amtrac is recorded, but I do know that at least 30 years ago in the cabin of every locomotive at Russian railroads an automatic recorder was registering the speed of the train at every 100 meters of the rails. It does not require an engineering genius to make a device automatically triggering an alarm if the speed limit at any segment of the path were violated.
The technology certainly exists for a small hand-held GPS to know the speed limit on every section of track in the entire U.S., but you have to think like a union member, here.
Want to know what the union leaders are thinking about this?
‘What difference does this make?’
If there is ONE unifying theme with such operators — it’s falling asleep.
The same peril awaits truckers and pilots.
It was for this reason that the USAAF never wanted serious planes (bombers) with only solo pilots.
Even GPS is not necessary for rails, as even more primitive systems suffice… but they do have to be installed.