http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=82c_1209926621
http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/Accident_Investigation/2006/hq200679v.pdf
WOW! Just WOW!!!
I can’t even begin to imagine the feeling of horror that must have come over the crew as they realized what was about to happen.
The crew on the local as well as the dispatcher dropped the ball and could have gotten someone killed. I’m just glad no one was seriously hurt or killed. This is the reason I always disliked working in non signaled territory.
From my computer,I cant tell what color the siginals at that switch were but it should have showed a red siginal for the siding, warning it was occuppied,RT?
It was dark territory and there were no signals to be observed only the manual switch stand target which displayed a red board indicating the switch was lined for the siding. Even under ideal conditions it’s hard to discern the aspect displayed by a switch target until you’re fairly close to it by which time it would be too late to make even an emergency stop from 36 mph. If the sun is in your eyes, foggy, raining or snowing hard You can forget the switch stand cause you aren’t going to see it until you’re almost at it. It’s kind of a crap shoot but you just have to rely on everyone having done their job correctly.
Mark
maaaaan thats scary ! When your just doing your job…
2.2 million dollars in damages it could have been 220 million if haz mat had been involved. Grantiville, SC all over.
That was scary… wow. Nothing nice about that, nothing at all.
Probably everyone has seen this other video but for those who haven’t http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMQ7mHJSiOA Talk about having to rely on everyone having done their job correctly.
And in that above video… everyone DID their job correctly. They were operating at restricted speed and were able to stop before hitting anything.
That would definitely be a bad day at the office.
My absolute worst nightmare as a conductor. Thank the lord I never had to experience something like that. Even now as a train dispatcher, with FRA mandate E024 I dot every “I” and cross every “T” as far as mainline switches go. It only takes overlooking one switch to cause something like that. I work an Amtrak route that goes through dark territory out of Indianapolis to Crawfordsville, and to think of a mainline switch lined from the main into Steel Dynamics, etc. … it just horrifies me to even think of the possibility. It’s just something that I will NEVER take for granted because peoples lives are in my hands.