Join the discussion on the following article:
NTSB issues recommendations in 2011 Nevada grade crossing accident
Bureaucratic balderdash, methinks.
So a truck hits the side of a passenger train at a well marked crossing and the NTSB wants the FRA to mandate future passenger cars be built to new safer standards. Well that’s all good but who’s going to pay for it? I think any cost to make passenger cars more side impact resistant should be billed to the trucking industry. Why should Amtrak and the commuter railroads be forced to pay higher cost to buy equipment when they are not the ones at fault. Railroads in the U.S. already spend millions extra on locomotives so that they will stand up against the frontal impacts from errant trucks at crossings, none of which is picked up by the truckers.
It would be downright nice to at least have a bullet point list of the recommendations for motor carriers so that we, the reader, could evaluate if the regulators are placing the blame where it should go. As the article reads it would appear that we, the rail travelling public, should plan on riding older cars for some time to come since the new ones will become much more expensive to build and operate.
Once again, railroads have to beef up their equipment to protect passengers from scofflaw drivers who ignore railroad crossing protection.
As long as the truck company pays Amtrak for all those modifications.
pretty unrealistic if you ask me to say that the solution is to design and build passenger cars to be able to withstand side impact by a speeding truck. How much armor plate is enough? and at the same time Amtrak is petitioning the FRA for an exemption from existing crashworthiness standards to be able to use equipment that the rest of the world uses. Ironic?
pretty unrealistic if you ask me to say that the solution is to design and build passenger cars to be able to withstand side impact by a speeding truck. How much armor plate is enough? and at the same time Amtrak is petitioning the FRA for an exemption from existing crashworthiness standards to be able to use equipment that the rest of the world uses. Ironic?
pretty unrealistic if you ask me to say that the solution is to design and build passenger cars to be able to withstand side impact by a speeding truck. How much armor plate is enough? and at the same time Amtrak is petitioning the FRA for an exemption from existing crashworthiness standards to be able to use equipment that the rest of the world uses. Ironic?
Are you serious? Beef up the passenger cars because some idiot drove through the crossing warnings? And we wonder why we’re decades behind other countries on high-speed rail!
Maybe it would be better to eliminate all at grade street and highway crossings.
I would like to know if the truck company and the driver were found to be at fault ?
I would like to know if the truck company and the driver were found to be at fault ?
Typical government reaction- life must be made 100% safe for everyone everywhere. If this is all one read about this accident it would lead you to believe the railroad was at fault. Its like the headlines we read out here in CA all the time- “Amtrak (or UP, or BNSF, etc) train kills pedestrian” (or motorist, or teenager) and the next thing you know the railroad is being sued.
Perhaps if the NTSB and DOT would simply enforce the Motor Carrier Regulations that are already in effect, we wouldn’t have as many unqualified and reckless drivers on the highways at the wheels of motor coaches and semis. I am appalled by the poor driving skills I see regularly by drivers of both independent and “company” trucks and I have first-hand experience with motor coach carriers who routinely ignore DOT hours-of-service regulations.
While they are at it, they need to mandate to the airline industry that airplanes need to be more crash worthy, so that the passengers can survive a collision with another plane, or a nose first landing at speed. Same difference…
We are getting to the point that we might as well put railroad truck assemblies under Ambrams tanks so that we have enough armor plating to prevent “intrusion”. While we are at it we should also harden the tops of the cars just in case someone drived over an embankment and went through the roof of the train.
How do you engineer a solution that protects from idiocy or drug abuse or just plain craziness? Answer: you can try and you’ll still fail. If they make the railcars tough enough to live through a high-speed t-bone collision with an 18-wheeler, they’ll be so costly and so heavy that they’ll not be able to do the intended job. I’ve been through that crossing more than a few times, and there is no way to make it more visible. Only a grade separation could make it foolproof.
THE TRUCK DRIVER WAS AT FAULT AND THE RAILROAD MUST SPEND MORE MONEY? HOW STUPID!!!
Yeah, and the NTSB seems to disregard all the tour bus fatalities that occur because of roof collapse due to the larger window bus design. Where’s the crush proof design standard for them?