Are you saying that if we don’t like it, we should just hit the road?
I participate in several other RR forums - can’t say that I am impressed about the knowledge displayed or the questions asked in them by their participants.
Although quoting Bucyrus, this isn’t necessarily directed at him.
I think some get defensive because often times there are those that start questioning everything to deflect as much blame as possible. I suppose it’s because of the litigious country we’ve become. If even 10% of fault can be shifted to some other entity, that might reduce the amount of judgement by 10% that will have to be paid out. Before you know it, an incident goes from being “cut and dried,” to one where everyone who has been within 50 feet of the location within the last 5 years has played a part in why it happened.
The NTSB isn’t so much about the assessing of blame, but how to avoid or at least mitigate future accidents. I think personally that sometimes this can just feed the fire for those who do want to assess blame, especially when they want it directed away from where most of it would otherwise lie. It doesn’t help either when the NTSB finally releases recommendations that in some instances aren’t realistic. (I’m thinking of a blurb in Trains years ago about a train-school bus crash. The NTSB said the accident was made worse by the “accessories” or words to that effect, on the front of the locomotive
I know it was to the mods, and I am pretty sure Bergie posted his reason at the time. It has been five years, so…a lot of water under the bridge.
Crandell
The more I read about the Texas accident, the less cut and dried it appears. Having said that, there’s almost nothing to say that the UPRR acted improperly before the accident, nor was there anything to suggest that the engineer acted in an improper or unsafe manner. The reports suggest that blame for the accident is shared among the driver, the organizers and maybe the city, but by no means do I have enough of the facts to even give an approximate guess as how that blame should be shared.
The accident was preventable, the question is what could have prevented it, e.g. better driver training, better enforcement of existing laws or new laws or regulations?
Any grade crossing accident is one too many, not only for the lives lost but also for the disruption rail operations particularly where there is heavy passenger traffic.
- Erik
Nor can I.
Beware of 
That and greyhound’s post regarding mr. blownout cylinder’s impatience with threads he feels are going nowhere raises two larger questions.
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Has it now become possible when one is impatient with repetitive threads to call that offensive and report that to a moderator?
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Have the/some moderator(s) decided that they will lock threads in which there is some controversy, but which do not violate rules or engage in personal attacks or “flaming” without any explanation?
Sometimes I think the alphabet agencies continue to ask questions solely to justify their own existence. I just get tired of every time there is a wreck, that something has to be inherently wrong with the crossing that caused it. Whether you intend to steer the discussion that way all the time or not, I do not know, but I’ll continue to participate in the argument either way.
Are you sure you are not exaggerating? I don’t steer the discussion that way all the time. I only steer the discussion that way if I feel there is something there to see. And this is a conversation, so others can steer it back if they want to.
I don’t know if the agencies ask lots of questions because they are trying to justify their existence or not. But the reason they give for asking all the questions is to discover how future crashes might be averted. Why can’t we do the same thing? We are only engaging in informal discussion. We are not a trier of facts here.
In the case of the Nevada crash, I did conclude that the crossing warning was not long enough when you consider the speed of approach. But it is only my opinion. If that is found to be true, does that excuse the driver? Will it cause the crossing to be changed? The state of Nevada must have had the same question about the crossing because they went out after the crash and investigated five or six of their crossings on the highest speed roads to see if the warning was long enough considering the road speed.
In the case of the Texas crash, the part I find most interesting is the question of who will be blamed. So I am not just going to put blinders on and say the railroad is always right and the driver is always wrong. I don’t think this one is going to play out with that kind of clarity.
I questioned the performance of the quiet zone. People here apparently thought I was taking blame off of the truck driver by blaming the quiet zone. Probably some of those same people have themselves criticized quiet zones as being something unsafe that is foisted upon t
This.
There does not specifically need to be something wrong with a crossing to cause any accident. Humans are notoriously failure prone. Take football for instance. QB throws a pass. Receiver drops a perfect spiral where the only thing within 10 yards is the end zone. Failure of the QB? The turf? Nope. A mistake made by a human. As for an earlier post regarding limitations of the old forum software, a little more explanation. The computers hosting this forum and other forums out there are multitaskers. They almost always host multiple things (website, firums, email, even online checkouts). Otherwise the cost of hosting websites would make it financially cost prohibitive. Having 100 websites instead of 1 on a server means instead of 100 a month, each person can pay 5-10 a month. The side effect is some sites/forums etc take up a lot of processing and have to have those threads snipped. It doesn’t happen as much now as it did 8-10 years ago though. 8-10 years ago was before we had phones with dual and quad core processors. Ok I have effectively made myself look stupid enough for the day. Blame the awesome thanksgiving dinner I made for my roomie and I.
No, I am not saying that at all. If I were I would be the first one to hit the road. What I am saying is that simply because we spend some time on this road there are still other roads we might investigate. None of us is compelled to limit ourselves to any one road in this life; I think we are all well advised to check out several roads not only here but also in general.
OK Thanks for the explanation.
Can you also explain what we’re doing that violates the forum policies and keeps causing threads to get locked? It’s quite frustrating to have a (second) thread locked, with no explanation, only some really oblique reference to poetry.
As long as the participants in a thread are civil, what is the harm of allowing a great taste / less filling discussion?
Futuremodal was always civil, as I recall. Articulate and well spoken, too.
Slight correction: Not just two (bad enough) but a whopping THREE threads on the Midland TX crossing accident that were locked. Perhaps this one could make it four?
Many of us do spend time on other roads. This is (imo) the best road out there. I hate to see it become a lesser road through tons of moderation and stale “where is the Bangaldesh & Romulan heritage unit now?” posts.
In the first locked thread, I stated that we were talking about a possible 3 second difference between when a regular horn signal would have been sounded, and when the emergency signal was sounded by the engineer. Both would have been after the gates activated, according to the NTSB timeline.
I do not see how the quiet zone figures into this, when the truck was already going across the tracks when the horn would have been sounded in a normal, non quiet crossing. Remember, FRA states the horn should be sounded no more than 1/4 a mile away, which comes into play at a high speed crossing like this one.
PS. And here you go again: it must be the crossing’s fault. Always. This time it must be the quiet zone. Nevermind the fact the truck driver blew the crossing for whatever reason, it must be the quiet zone.
Why human error? Sure, on the surface, the float driver apparently entered the crossing after the lights started flashing. Human error. But the goal should to reduce human error accidents. Why not examine system error, as I pointed out on the 3rd locked thread? Most grade crossings depend on somewhat updated 1940’s or earlier technology. Yet the freight trains operated are usually longer, heavier and faster, even in congested urban areas. I wonder what the reaction would have been if instead of a flatbed with veterans in wheelchairs, the trailer struck had been loaded with gasoline and killed the train crew? My point is crossings are dangerous for train crews as well as vehicles and their passengers. Continuing to be complacent by blaming the vehicle drivers is about as inane and unlikely to correct the real problem as simply shrugging and saying, “Stuff (or whatever) happens.”