You don’t know why this accident happened and neither do any of the rest of us. As I have said, as far as I know and recall from the NTSB reports, some aspects of this guy’s pre-accident cognitive status were not investigated thoroughly.
Comparing this possible trial with
When I saw this thread pop up the first thing I thought was “Holy Mary, Mother of God! Not again!”
Look, would it make some people happy if they just took the old Prussian approach and left Mr. Bostian alone in a room with a Luger loaded with one bullet and asking him to do the “right thing?”
I’m starting to wonder.
You’ll no doubt recall that the Nazis also used this tactic, with Rommel.
As a retired professional railroader, I am disappointed that Mr. Bostian’s actions would again be called in question. He made a mistake and became unaware of his location. This reminds me of Fatty Arbuckle being tried for the alleged again, until he was found not guilty. His career was ruined.
Ed Burns
Perhaps Bostian should plea a “crime of necessity” defense, wanting only to draw attenton to the inferior training, vetting, and supervision running rampant at Amtrak?
I doubt it would get him off the hook, but he at least might be able to drag a few others down with him, and make everyone sorry they charged him in the first place, which is almost as good.
Actually, they gave Rommel the choice between a cyanide capsule and “you know what,” for him and his family. But I see the point.
The Nazis DID do the “Prussian thing” with Ernst Roehm, the Storm Trooper chief during the 1934 “Blood Purge.” They had to shoot him, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of shooting himself.
Don’t feel too sorry for him though, he wasn’t exactly a nice guy either.
Mind you, if I was in Roehm’s position I’d have sat in a chair, Luger in hand, and popped the first SS man that came in the room to find out what the delay was. Why not? He was a dead man anyway. Might as well take one with you.
Are there wayside speed limit signs along the Northeast Corridor? If so, how far before this 50 mph curve would the sign be posted?
Or is this strictly a know-your-territory situation?
And does this area now have PTC? Does all of the NEC?
Finally, does the FRA have any way to collect data regarding how often PTC slows a train, and whether an accident was likely prevented?
Yes, as he was a popular war hero and had enough service to retire… choice was revolver and state funeral with all the honors as well as keep his Army pension or face Roland Friesler’s court and be humiliated as well as his family lose his Army pension and their home and likely become destitute if he chose the state prosecution path.
Still popular politico family after the War his Son became Mayor of Stuttgart, Germany and kept getting re-elected, through the 1990’s I believe. He was a very popular Mayor when I was stationed in the Army in West Germany and he was a frequent guest of American and Canadian forces. He gave tons of interviews to Stars and Stripes and AFN.
His Son was witness to that whole day and watched it unfold and also had some last words with his Father. I believe his Son was even in uniform on that day, forget which organization he belonged to at the time of his Father’s death not sure if it was Nazi related or Army related. I think there is even a You Tube video with him in it narrating parts of that day.
Another interesting historical note, General Pattons Son became a General and also served in the Cold War Army in Germany and I believe commanded at least one of his former Father’s Armored Divisions. I think that was early to mid-1970’s though, can’t remember and don’t want to spend time Googling it. The Mengele Family survived the war as well and I think Bavaria bailed out their farm implements business which almost went bust but they were known prior to the war for making farming equipment like tractor drawn hay wagons. Medium Blue with MENGELE in large white letters on the tailgate.
The point is not whether I “know” why this happened, it’s that details about how it happened don’t jibe with the official pravda that was put forward, by the NTSB and others, at the time.
In that respect, I sympathize with legal people and State officials who want to establish truth through a supposedly fair legal proceeding against him.
Unfortunately, in our current system, we can’t have a trial just on ‘finding of facts’; it has to be adversarial, prosecutorial, and involve criminal penalties some of which can be imposed almost whimsically by judges – either to forgive or ‘punish’. Separating “getting at the truth” from various kinds of political grandstanding is difficult at best even with fair-minded people, and as with Nifong I don’t think some of those people are fair-minded.
I’m not going to question this in any respect, although you might want to take the time to recap precisely which things ‘should have’ been either better investigated or better stated in reports like NTSB reports. I had the strong impression that ‘the system’ was allowing Bostian’s counsel to spin out a version that kept him out of vengeful prosecution, and that most of the subsequent legal shenanigans to “bring him to the bar of justice for his negligent crime” has been (for whatever motivational reason) at least been framed as nominal excuse to redress that. After all, in a fair trial, what does Bostian have to fear?
You,
All these things were exhaustively, and at times exhaustingly, discussed in the previous threads on the subject, some of which may be revived or linked when the new trial activity commences.
There are arguments about whether warning signs ‘should’ be posted when knowing the territory is a necessity for qualification. There are further arguments about whether providing warning signs actually causes more legal trouble and potential liability than not. In this particular case it was notable that there were, in fact, warning signs on this known-dangerous curve … just not in the direction from 40mph restriction in the direction of a 50mph restriction. This was much the same reason why ATS functionality in that direction was supposedly disabled.
In this case, far enough to notify the engineer to set up his train. Remember again that he’s coming out of a more severe permanent speed restriction, and that this is one of the absolute last places on the railroad that anyone would run a powerful motor up to full acceleration; there is comparatively little need for a sign in this location to provide ‘early warning’ to brake a train down from higher speed to reach safe limits.
The specifics here were carefully discussed at the time, and there were some surprising issues involving delay of key frequency allocations to Amtrak that contributed to the ‘hole’ in coverage between the old electromechanical PRR system and PTC coverage.
As I recall, one of the things that was completed on a ‘hurry-up’ basis was application of train-control coverage in both directions on the curve; I have no reason to believe that mandated PTC coverage isn’t e
As in the musical. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ9U4Cbb4wg
The business practices espoused would shut down today’s world economy. Cash, no credit. The clip also showed various railroad clips that did not go together in any form of continuity. I guess Prof. Harold Hill is in charge of Amtrak engineers.
I don’t know about Amtrak, but if our PTC makes an enforcement penalty it automatically sends notifications to management. I don’t know if it goes through the PTC desk or directly to supervisory management. But it does get sent. PTC will blow the horn approaching crossings if the engineer doesn’t or hasn’t started when PTC thinks he should’ve. Each time it does so, that is transmitted, too. PTC allows a few mph over the current maximum speed before it makes a penalty application. Before it does it gives a warning that speed is approaching that point. I think that warning message is also transmitted.
Don’t kid yourself. PTC tracks and tattles. For us, any enforcement encountered must be reported by the engineer when tying up. (We have a special computer feedback form for such things.) But I’ve only heard of a few where the PTC penalty was because the engineer didn’t take action. Most are because of glitches in the PTC, or when inputs to PTC fail, such as when wayside signals go red in front of an approaching train.
Jeff
I could be mistaken. I don’t believe any carriers PTC installation has yet moved beyond the ‘Production Testing’ phase of the installation to be certified as being Production.
In reading the trade rags, it is sounding as if METRA, NJ Transit, Tex Rail and the New Mexico Rail Runner are in danger of being judged as non-compliant
‘Nice’ slack action on the departure. That engineer must have been trained at Choo-Choo U. in Wilmington.
Manfred Rommel was volunteer assistant flak gunner at a local battery and as such wore the uniform of a Luftwaffe auxiliary. If I remember right he was 15 years old at the time and too young for regular service.
And [#welcome] aboard!
Like everyone else, I don’t what the real story is (and maybe there is no actual true story other than Bostian’s), but the guy was not impaired. He somehow made a mistake he’ll always have to live with.
I don’t see any value in prosecuting this man now.
I agree with you. But don’t you see? By prosecuting him it will give all the people who have never made a mistake the chance to feel better about themselves.
A discussion about the accident involving Pakistan Airlines Flight 8303 on May 22, 2020.
The discussion of operating procedures have applicability to both this incident as well as the Dupont, Washington overspeed incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvfc6LLj_ww
Vetting, Training, Supervision
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