Stopping the train in time may be impossible, dependent of speed, coefficient of friction, etc. The timing of the signal activation has zero to do with stopping distance. It’s the same for a five car Amtrak as it is for a 200 car drag.
I would instead opine that the focus would be on when the engineer detected the failed crossing protection and when (and if) he took steps to deal with it by at least slowing down.
The tests on when the engineer would be able to determine the failure have already been mentioned.
Which brings us back to “was he paying attention?”
Signals have been known to “bounce.” That is, everything activates per normal, then the lights go out and the gates go back up. In a case like that, the engineer can hardly be faulted. But, that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Today was a bright, sunny day. I noticed, depending somewhat on signalorientation, the white indicator lights, thru the portholes, was practically invisible until you were at the crossing. The red indicators were much more visible. On some crossings, the only indication of activation was being able to see the gates start down. And you really have to look sometimes to see the gates drop.
One must remember my experience is on a class one, heavy rail, freight operation. Light rail may have different characteristics.
That is interesting that the porthole lamps are so limited in their visibility. You would think that if it was worth doing, it would be done with a robust approach such as making those lights visible out to the point of train activation. As it is, it seems a little half baked. Is train operational compliance with these indicator lamps addressed in the rules?
My personal observation is that the ‘side port’ light openings have been more of a afterthought than something designed create a bold warning to crews operating rail vehicles over the crossings.
Crossing protection normally activates (for us on my territory) about 20 seconds before the train reaches the crossing. All our main track crossings appear to now use the predictive circuitry, the slower you go the closer to the crossing before it activates. For trains running around 50 mph, the crossing signals activate about where the whistle post is located, roughly 1200 feet before the crossing.
A train going 50 mph isn’t going to be able to stop.
The rules are set up to deal with known activation failures. The first train to observe an abnormalit
So, there have been two versions of this story available online. The first one was found to be incorrect, so it was replaced by the second one. Yet both still appear online. There are also versions that combine both stories and present them as fact apparently without realizing the two conflicting accounts cannot both be true.
The news always seems challenged to report railroad accidents correctly, but this one really takes the cake. Then on top of that is the actual technical context of the accident.
In a previous thread, I outlined the things the police would have to investigate and test to find the facts in order to charge the engineer. There has been no news on the finding of those types of facts that would support the charge of felony manslaughter.
Then regardless of what the engineer actually did, there is the incredibly murky topic of what the engineer could have done to save the day. Well, there was this tiny light that should have been illuminated and may not have been. Of course it can be impossible to see under various conditions and means nothing if the train is traveling above a certain speed. What about the horn? Was he blowing the horn? Can the horn be heard from near the crossing?
IF the equipment has an event recorder, information about the use of the horn would be available and has probably already been taken into consideration.
Looking at Street View, the crossing doesn’t appear to be configured for a no horn zone.
One must also consider that the driver may have had the radio on, possibly loudly, which would probably override the sound of the train’s horn.
I have used that particular crossing myriad times. My Dentist’s office at one time was the large house on Maple Rd. East of the crossing. The station on the NW quadrant of the crossing, I believe is the original B&A station. The house I was brought home to after birth is about 0.3 miles West of the crossing on Hammonds Ferry Road.
I conclude that the transit locomotive has an in-cab device that warns the engineer if the crossing protection fails to activate at any time during the approach and passage over the crossing. In this case, the crossing protection did fail to activate, so engineer is guilty of failing to respond to the warning given by the in-cab device.
I am not aware of any such equipment on Light Rail cars. Remember, these trains operate in the middle of Howard Street through Downtown Baltimore in the manner that streetcars did in an age gone by. There are frequent train vs. vehicle incidents in this street operation.
The location is on the former Baltimore & Annapolis RR that was a Interurban style electric operation between its named points that stopped its passenger operations in the early 1950’s. It maintained a very small freight operation until the 1970’s when that was abandoned. Light rail has been the only thing on the line since the origination of the Baltimore Light Rail in the 1990’s.
I am not talking about anything as complicated as “Intelligent Grade Crossings” with massive A.I. and 3D scanning of the site. While it is essential to motor vehicles on roads, it is mostly irrelevant to grade crossing protection.
This is because anything that A.I. could predict of driver transgression would have to be only a few seconds into the future. Any warning to the engineer of this type of immediate danger will be irrelevant and pointless. If the engineer is right there when it happens, he will be too close to stop, and if it happens with enough warning time to stop, it will be over by the time the engineer gets there.
The only way any kind of detection makes sense is to detect stalled vehicles. In many cases stalled vehicles can be detected early enough to give the engineer sufficient warning to stop before colliding with the stalled vehicles. But you don’t need A.I. for that. All you need is a sensor to see if the crossing is fouled.
My point in concluding that there must have been a robust activation indicator in this crash was simply that it must have been the case in order for the police to be so certain of the gross negligence that they say justifies the charge of felony manslaughter committed by the engineer.
I just, don’t think the facts can add up to a conclusion that the engineer could have done anything to prevent the collision. That is, unless an automatic warning landed right in his face early enough to allow time to stop the train.&nb
This is why some railroads are adding another indicator (as simple as a turn signal) to indicate that at least the lights are working.
You’d be surprised how visible those portholes (and the LEDs that are replacing them) actually are.
As Balt implies, this looks to be the motivation for the charges. The case can now get lost in the court system and quietly go away, unless there is a true basis for the case.
We haven’t been treated to any information regarding previous failures at that crossing, or just how visible the crossing is to oncoming trains.
Which leads back to my earlier suggestion that the engineer simply wasn’t paying attention. If the driver in question simply drove across the tracks at speed (whatever is appropriate for that section of road), the engineer likely would have had few options other than backing
