Beginning Sunday, July 11 The New York Times will publish an expose into RR accident investigations.
Sunday’s edition starts with grade crossings. Of 3,000 crossing accidents last year only 4 were investigated by the feds.
The UP, BNSF, KCS, and NS railroads are blasted. The article discusses evidence tampering, black box malfunctions, maintenance, slow orders, etc.
Should be an interesting series.
I suppose you have to have a subscription to that website in order to get the stories?
I think the NYTimes is like that, aren’t they?
Oh ok, at least it’s free.
Oh boy, hope Bergie has his eyes peeled for the M&M twins, this is right UP their alley…
(yes, thats a bad pun)
Most grade crossing accidents are the fault of the motorist, and all of us who run the trains can testify to that.
Also, all of us who run the train report to our supervisors any gate or safety device we see malfunctioning.
Beyond that, it is out of the T&E employees control.
All that said, it still is shameful if what the reporters claim is true.
Destruction or altering any record or physical evidence of any kind is illegal.
The sad part is currently, there is no legal remedy to prevent the carriers from doing just what the report claims, other than judges issuing sanctions, which amount to not much more than a fine.
Because the accident invistigation is pretty much the jurisdiction of the railroad itself, one would have to imagine that the carrier does all that it can to limit its liability.
But tampering with evidence, and losing documents and tape recordings it (the carrier) knows are relevant, is still a crime.
Of course, the mentality of “if you cant see it, hear it, or find it, then it dosnt exsist, and it cant be produced in court” is the main reason they do stuff like this.
Sad too, because in almost every instance quoted, it would have been much more cost efficent for the railroad to fix the problem in the first place, instead of playing the odds that nothing will happen, or, if something does occure, betting that they can offer a large enough settlement to make the plantif go away.
Down here on the little old railroad I work for, all of our grade crossing devices are installed and maintained by UP.
If a train crew finds a defective device at a grade crossing, we flag the crossing, and call in the location to our yardmaster/dispatcher.
In the 8 years I have been here, the longest it took UP to have someone there working on it was 9 h
Mark,
Can you give us a link to web site? Would love to watch that story myself.
Sounds like a mess…
LC
This reminds me very much of the television “investigative” reports that pop up every ratings period. Is there an equivalent for newpapers?
WDGF,
No, I dont think there is a sweeps week for newspapers, but, articles like this do sell newspapers.
Note this story is very prominent in the national section.
Politics plays a large role in what appears in papers like this.
Think back to the Watergate era…remember the Post every running anything that presented Nixon’s side to the story, other than short, out of context quotes?
I noticed this paticular article seemed to foucs on UP quite intently.
BNSF and KCS, were mentioned, but only briefly, and CSX and NS, although mentioned, were almost aplauded for having fixed “their problems”
It almost makes you wonder how much influence could be exerted by shippers, who happen to be advitisers also.
For all we know, UP may be delivering newsprint rolls late to the NY Times printer…
The report was rather biased in other ways.
It did note that crossing accident were down quite a bit in tte last few years, and it did note that one of the major reasons was due to grade crossing removal, but it failed to mention that almost every grade crossing that gets removed is removed because the railroads push for it, nor does it mention that grade crossing closings are a top priority with the AAR and FRA.
Linda Morgan was quoted in a TV special once as saying “the safest crossing, is the one that’s not there”, yet I failed to find credit given to any railroad for this attitude in the report.
While we were shown video and audio bites from the victims point of veiw, none were presented which allowed UP to respond, yet I am sure that, if offered, Ms. Blackwell would have been happy to provide the Times with UP’s response and footage.
The entire article smacks of the attitude that railroads, UP in paticular, are the somewhat evil big industry, intent on harming the little guy in pursuit of profit.
And one thing that bothered me greatly about the report is that fact that it puts forth the noti
Ed
To add to the mix here on the NS Most cases it is trainmasters and roadformans who give statements to the public about accidents. and in some cases where news crews have come to the sceane of a accident the officials have told the news people to leave. if they refuse and try using the lame i am the media then the officials got o the police and have them arrested if they wont leave as they are tresspassing. Also I cant believe the event recorder recorded a train going 158mph and 138 ( as close as i can remeber it saying) but if the thing was recording metric then wouldnt that be around 60mph?
The just of the matter is there is a witch hunt and it seems they are picking on the union pacific for now. and that i still think it is one sided reporting. If the recorders was tampered with this would be admisable in court and most certainly they would lose the case. also there was a statement that the trooper was to ask for a copy of the event recorder records at the sceane. Most engineers know that these are either 8 track tape type or the new ones are like a 1.5 floppy and downloaded on them. unless someone brings a lap top computor they cant read these things in the field and i have never seen a official carry a printer with them. police dont have the soft ware to read these tapes either. this is one reason i report buffs ( who think they need to get close for the picture) near misses and anyone else who gets on the property to see what we do. and let the law handle it the way they want.
Unfortunatly I have seen many event recorders that provided erronious information, including speeds that were wrong, there are few standards when it comes to event recorders, every railroad has a different idea . If you mix up axle gens you can double the indicated speeds, ie replace a 20 ppr with a 60 ppr
I have done many accident investigations, I prefer not to talk about it , I have seen many very sad things.
Randy
OK, Antigates this is the original thread…
LC
(1) Saw the article on the front page of Denver’s Sunday paper plus the local reporters added on to the article by tacking a horribly one-sided view of the Castle Rock near -fatality to the article. (just to stir it up a little more, and brainwa***he rest)…
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11676~2265399,00.html
(2) The article belonged in the op-ed section of the paper, not the front page.
(3) In MHO, the NY Times and the Denver Post are in a hurry to “suck-up” to the Litigation Lawyers, er um Democatic presidential candidates. I wonder how long before the motivations to write the article come to light and NY Times suffers another error in journalistic integrity???
Mark, would not have thought of the term “scurrilous”, but it DOES fit!
[V][V][V]
Thank You Sir![:)]
I “just” signed up and got a chance to read the article.
“Just” read that article also,“very interesting”
When you get right down to it a train only has one set of laws to obey.
Reporters, lawyers and motorists are mostly idiots. The railroads came long before the roads. The public crosses at their own risk. The railroads try to make it as safe as possible, and try to warn people when a train is coming. No system is perfect, but have the railroads really done anything wrong?
People don’t understand that trains can’t stop. Nobody wants to have an accident, especially the railroad, but motorists have become complacent. They think that the signals will protect them and that if they aren’t on, it must be safe.
As far as I know, school buses are still required to stop at all grade crossings, open the door and look both ways, but for the average motorist this isn’t practical. Driving a car is dangerous. A moment’s inattention, and splat!!! If it happens on the tracks, it must have been the train.
By the way, I consider myself politically liberal, but there is no substitute for common sense and caution in matters of life and death.
Go to csx-sucks.com and read what some of the posters on there post. One, I think, was run off these boards for her impassioned words that more or less would attempt to lead one to believe that most engineers run their trains right off the tracks to chase down poor, innocent motorists.
This article is in that same vein. In many years of experience, I’ve seen exactly one time where a set of gates and flashers failed to work and we didn’t have any knowledge of it before we went across the crossing. Now, that upset me and we reported it promptly, other trains were required to protect the crossing before proceeding and it was fixed promptly, too. But that was only one time.
Life is a series of risks, we can all cower under the bed or get out and take our chances. I’m so sick of the “everything has to be perfectly safe” crowd that I can’t hardly stand it. Everything can’t be perfectly, totally, completely, without question safe or I believe that there is nothing that would get done.
The public will suck this up because the public knows little about railroads in general and are gullible about things they know nothing about. And, it’s the NY Times. My, my.
Note too, that one of the M&M twins, Mike P, was a juor in the case reported in todays edition.
Which explaines his one sided, obstinate persuit of “the railroads is allways at fault” position.
Granted, fixing the lights while the police are on site and investigating is a pretty cheap trick, and is altering evidence, and yes, according to the trooper, the view was blocked by vegatation, the young lady still should have stoped, looked and listened.
$25,000.00 to settel is still pretty cheap.
Keep in mind what you read in the reports is only what the reporter decides to report.
And again, no mention is given of the other instances where railroads do the right thing, without beings forced to do so by lawsuits.
PI attorneys, as Mark pointed out, are not the driving force behind todays lawsuit happy public, but are a direct result of the mentality that some one, other than the person injuried, must be responsible for the injuried person actions and resulting injuries.
The need to blame anyone else other than themselves for what happed has created a niche for them, and they fill it quite well.
As the father of three daughters, which some forum members have met, I can feel for the folks mentioned in todays article.
But, as some forum members can tell you, even my 5 year old knows to stay away from trains, and stop, look and listen.
How does she knows this?
Because we taught her to.
Its not the railroad responsibility to teach my kids to be careful around trains, its mine.
My oldest daughter is learning to drive, and I took the time to take her to several of the worst crossing here, and show her what to do, and how to be careful.
She already knows that, if she feels that she cant safely cross, dont.
Find another crossing.
If there isnt one anywhere else, stop completly, get out, and look.
She knows how fast trains go, and that they can sneak up on you quite quickly.
You guys hav
I too read Mark’s post. A couple of points about :
Litigation lawyers are neutral. Obviously, there are those in the plaintiff’s bar that fight for high contingency fees and fight against limits on those fees. What you discount is that lawyers MUST look over their shoulder for malpractice as well. Lawsuits against lawyers in injury cases have proliferated in recent years with rising malpractice premiums and other overhead (expensive computer calendaring and additional staff and investigation included) to keep a handle on the caseload making for greater pressure to increase earnings to cover this overhead. Also, the attorney malpractice concern requires a good lawyer to make sure he sues everyone who might have responsibility for the incident in question. If he doesn’t and it turns out that someone else was responsible and the statue of limitations against the responsible party has passed…the lawyer takes the hit. So, this leads to lawyers naming everyone who may be responsible in any lawsuit.
The NYT used to be a responsible paper. The article in question reminds me more of the New York Post and not the Times I knew. Of course, that was before they hired people who made up news too.
This article and the prior one makes far too much about repairing problems. What should a responsible company do once it is notified of a problem?! Leave the equipment broken for the next potential victim??? Leave the brush obstructing the view??? Obviously not. In fact, the law of evidence is quite clear that evidence of subsequent repair canot be considered as evidence of liability (fault) in court. This rule is meant to encourage repairs of known problems promptly. The NYT is merely sensationalizing the repairs to make it look improper. Shame on them.
LC
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by jchnhtfd
As usual, Mark H
Too bad I can’t say what I really want to say ( bad word issues) I do feel how ever that the UP spokes person Miss Blackwell doesn’t have a clue what the hell she’s talking about. I believe there is some factual basis motivating these attacks and the sad part is it makes me ashamed to be a railroader
Randy
After reading the articles, several things come to mind. First as Mr. Stahl points out, UP’s spokesperson isn’t really doing such a grand job. It would appear that since RRs have stayed in the background and out of the public focus for a long while, that they don’t have the polished spin that many other industries have when dealing with the public.
The another is that the NYT which is in a position to spin the story, is choosing to capitalize on the little people vs. big bad industry wave that has once again become popular of late. Enron and Worldcom have become tired subjects, and thus a new “killer” has to found. As the number of industries (not just RRs, but all business) grows smaller because of mergers and buyouts, those that remian become larger and more “evil”. The RRs are an easy target, primarily due to misconceptions and ignorance regarding who is responsible for what when it comes to grade crossings. Mudchicken can and has expounded on this subject until he’s blue in the beak. It’s not quite as sensational to go after a county government.
And lastly one of the things of note was about the guy hauling potatos that got hit in WA. He had been driving 12-14 hours and was shielding his eyes against the sun before he was hit. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture.
It saddens me when folks get hit by trains, becasue there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for it to happen. If there was negligence or malice pure and simple, then those responsible should be hung out to dry. If there was a simple malfuntion ther RRs hold some responsibility… BUT I still look both ways before I cross the street even with a Walk signal. There is a rule in Maritime Rules of the Road which states that even if you have right of way and are doing everything right and the other vessel isn’t, and you had an opportunity to do something to avoid collision and didn’t, you share some responsibility.