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Report: Amtrak ordered to modify signals after Philadelphia derailment
A fatal accident after 72 years of safe operation and they demand this knee-jerk “fix”.
If the FCC won’t release suitable airwaves, what is Amtrak to do?
A more logical order would be lower speeds in the miles leading up to the curve until the system can be operational…
What else can one expect from a political hack? The disruption of service aside, does a governmental agency - or it’s “acting administrator” really have the authority to prolong the disruption of interstate commerce? After all, SEPTA, NJT, and Norfolk Southern services in the area are all being affected in some manner …
PRR HAD an ATS system. They took it out because it was old and difficult to maintain…yes and the Colonial/Ricky Gates wreck would not have happened if they had just left the split point derails on the line where he ran the red signal and went out in front of the Colonial. Again, they were a pain to maintain so they went.
Lets talk about another person in the control cab now??? Would it have prevented this tragic wreck? Could be it could have but thats a lotta could haves…but let me say this…for the price of the lawsuits they could put two up front for a very long time…and have NO LAWSUITS. Then again no one can quantify no lawsuits on the books but they sure as hell can have a column in the ledger where the lawsuit money will come from… and it is in RED INK.
Then again thats the way they wanna run things. C’est la vie as the chickens come home to roost.
I’m working on retireing and leaving it all behind. Railroading is a young mans game now and I wonder if they can handle it anymore.
Why is so much attention being paid to everything EXCEPT the cause of the accident, the engineer?
The NEC is already equipped with Automatic Train Control (ATC) with cab signals. Therefore the word “implement” doesn’t make sense without an accurate description of exactly what it is that is actually being ordered. It might be that the FRA is ordering one or more modifications to the existing signal system as the first sentence implies.
It would be cheaper to put that second man in the cab than to go a spend Billions of dollars. A second man in the cab could have prevented this. I can’t see operating passenger trains with just the engineer in the cab, four eyes are better and two. Or should I say four hands are better that two?