Late 50’s the Capitol Limited hit a trailer load of dishwashing liquid. Damaged engines were returned to the roundhouse at Garrett, IN. I was down at the depot when an afternoon T’storm hit. Talk about foamers!
How did crew make out?
The crew did the only thing they reasonably could do, and they only had a second or two to make that call. They shouldn’t be second guessed and should be provided with as much support as possible as they too are the victims in this.
I can understand the reasoning behind the decision to not make an “Emergency” application until there is proof that a collision is inevitable. The reason is that there is risk of a derailment being caused by the stopping power of the brake application and the effect of slack.
However, it is precisely in the cases of probable, but not inevitable collisions that the “Emergency” application might save lives.
So, delaying an “Emergency” application until there is proof that collision will occur would seem to defeat the whole purpose of having the “Emergency” application available. What is the point of having an “Emergency” application available, if you can’t use it until the collision is inevitable or over?
All that being the case, I can see the challenge of the decision. The more distance there is between the train and the fouling vehicle, the greater the chance of the vehicle clearing before the train reaches the crossing. And yet those are the cases where stopping short of the crossing would be most possible.
This question of what lawyers would say about withholding an “Emergency” application raises the question of what railroad management would say. What do they say? Are there official company policy or rules that prescribe the proper response by engineers when confronted by probable collisions at grade crossings?
There are so many variables involved that trying to develop an algorithm is beyond impossible.
The crew has absolutely no knowledge of the intentions or the abilities of the person or vehicle fouling the tracks.
And even if the decision is made to place a train into emergency as soon as a potential problem presents itself, there is often little said brake application will do to lessen the severity of the eventual outcome.
I realize there are lots of variables, and by the time that a collision is nearly inevitable, it will be mostly too late to slow down much, if any. However, if you also factor in a risk of derailment by trying to stop hard, then it becomes logical to not make any brake application until after a collision occurs. Then with there still being the risk of derailment, it would be logical to only use a “Service” application after a collision occurs.
Another point, as previously mentioned, is that there may be additional liability for the company if no attempt to avoid a collision is made.
These seem like fairly specific issues, yet I have never seen them addressed in any rule book or special instructions, or any other form of guidance by management. So I am wondering if such rules or instructions exist, and what they say about the matter.
Interesting item there have been several BNSF haulage baretables going to Fairburn ( Atlanta ). Guess the track blockage caused loading and unloading of the BNSFs in Birmingham ?
Surely you can sue anybody for anything. However, I think you’d be hard-pressed to prove that the engineer actually even needed to attempt to avoid a collision with someone trespassing on company property. If a Delta jet hits someone on the runway, who is at fault? Probably not Delta. Even if a lawyer could make that case sound plausible, it would be just as plausible to prove that emergency braking would have probably made the situation worse.
I doubt that the fact someone was trespassing (violating crossing law) would offset the responsibility to do what is reasonable to protect the trespasser from potentially fatal hazards. Owners of property always want to believe that is the case because they are enraged by people trespassing on their property.
Lawyers will throw everything at the wall, and some of it usually sticks. A lawyer might point out that trains are equipped with an “Emergency” braking feature which stops a train as quickly as possible. Railroads are always pointing out that it takes a lot of time to stop a train. So a lawyer might ask a jury why a railroad would not use the most effective method available to slow a train as quickly as possible.
[quote user=“Euclid”]
Murphy Siding
Euclid
Another point, as previously mentioned, is that there may be additional liability for the company if no attempt to avoid a collision is made.
Surely you can sue anybody for anything. However, I think you’d be hard-pressed to prove that the engineer actually even needed to attempt to avoid a collision with someone trespassing on company property. If a Delta jet hits someone on the runway, who is at fault? Probably not Delta. Even if a lawyer could make that case sound plausible, it would be just as plausible to prove that emergency braking would have probably made the situation worse.
I doubt that the fact someone was trespassing (violating crossing law) would offset the responsibility to do what is reasonable to protect the trespasser from potentially fatal hazards. Owners of property always want to believe that is the case because they are enraged by people trespassing on their property.
Lawyers will throw everything at the wall, and some of it usually sticks. A lawyer might point out that trains are equipped with an “Emergency” braking feature which stops a train as quickly as possible. Railroads are always pointing out that it
Doubtful. And expert witnesses do not ask questions, they figure out the best answers to them.
I know a guy who makes a living as an expert witness in the construction field. He is always asking questions-lots of circular questions- so that he can guage the answers and work out every possible angle.
[quote user=“Murphy Siding”]
Euclid
Murphy Siding
Euclid
Another point, as previously mentioned, is that there may be additional liability for the company if no attempt to avoid a collision is made.
Surely you can sue anybody for anything. However, I think you’d be hard-pressed to prove that the engineer actually even needed to attempt to avoid a collision with someone trespassing on company property. If a Delta jet hits someone on the runway, who is at fault? Probably not Delta. Even if a lawyer could make that case sound plausible, it would be just as plausible to prove that emergency braking would have probably made the situation worse.
I doubt that the fact someone was trespassing (violating crossing law) would offset the responsibility to do what is reasonable to protect the trespasser from potentially fatal hazards. Owners of property always want to believe that is the case because they are enraged by people trespassing on their property.
Lawyers will throw everything at the wall, and some of it usually sticks. A lawyer might point out that trains are equippe
Uphill or down? Slack in or out? Tangent or curve(s)? Speed? What is the distribution of empties/loads in the train? Are there any undiscovered track or equipment flaws? Are there any know contributors to derailments in the track structure?
Again, the variables are many - probably too many to compute any specific probabilities.
And because of those many variables, it would be virtually impossible to give specific instructions. There are going to be some rules of thumb, mostly from shared experience, but very little codified.
When faced with a “situation,” an engineer has to quickly consider all those variables. And if it’s a significant obstacle they’re going to run in to (load of steel, or fuel tanker), odds are the crew will be on the floor, hoping they survive at all.
I seem to recall, perusing the NTSB docket on the Nevada Amtrak event where the semi plowed into the CZ, the engineer in his post-incident interview stated that he was trying to keep the train stretched as things unfolded because of his belief the likelihood of derailment in that sort of collision was lower with the train stretched. I don’t recall now whether he attributed that to training or shared experience or both, but at the time I found it an interesting insight.
Automatic Train Stop (ATS), Train Control with cab signals (TC) and Positve Train Control (PTC) - when encountering a situation that requires a ‘penalty stop’; apply the brakes in full service - NOT EMERGENCY.
My company’s instructions to crews for when a signal goes RED (STOP at control points, or Restricted Proceed at Intermediates) in the face of the train (
What a can of worms I opened up. I just want to say with the episode I described, I wasn’t going to throw us into emergency. I wasn’t trying to second-guess the crew involved with the suicide. In that situation it would be hard not to shoot 'em. I probably would do the same thing in that situation. A vehicle speeding towards a crossing is different from a vehicle, or person, on the tracks.
I have had a few episodes when I did put some air under the train just in case I was going to have to dump the air. Fortunately the vehicles on the crossings, stopped by traffic conditions, were able to clear before the “big hole” was needed.
Jeff
I understand your point about there being many variables affecting whether dumping the air would cause a derailment. But just to get an idea of the probability, I would like to know the number of derailments triggered by “Emergency” applications. I am not concerned about narrowing it down to various extenuating situations. Everyb
Jeff,
I did not interpret your comments about the approaching vehicle to mean you were second guessing the crew involved in this LaGrange fatality. I understand your point that a person or vehicle on the track is different from a vehicle speeding toward the tracks. Vehicles on the track may be stalled in traffic or maybe stuck in snow. As such they give visual evidence that they may not move in time, which offers the opportunity to slow down or even stop the train if it is not moving too fast.
Railroad rules are no longer written by railroaders - they are written by lawyers. A lawyer will never say in 10 words what he can state in 100 undecipherable pages.