Posted on 09/14/2008 8:57:03 AM PDT by traumer
“The Illinois Central officially said
He’s a good engineer to be a-lying dead.”
Actually, the Illinois Central blamed the wreck on Casey Jones, although best evidence seems to fault the conductor of the stalled train ahead even more. (Jones acted heroically, holding the brake till the very end to mitigate the effect on passengers in his train, when he could have jumped as he ordered his fireman to do.)
The official report said that Jones ran through several flares and torpedo signals, based on the word of the conductor of the other train. Jones was not available to comment, although his surviving fireman claimed that there were no such signals.
I think I read on another thread that a text message was sent from the engineers phone at the time he was blowing the stop signal.
The engineer was an employee of Veolia, which contracted for operation of the trains.
Was there anything unusual about having that particular freight running on that day? Was it typical for the Metrolink to wait at that point for a freight to pass? If the Metorlink normally had no other traffic to deal with on that run, the engineer could have gotten complacent.
I asked my son if the dispatcher would have notified the engineer ahead of time that he was going to be stopped along the way for another train to pass. He said that under law, you couldn't do that, because the dispatcher couldn't know for sure exactly where the train would eventually be stopped. As well, because many of the signals are out of the hands of the dispatchers, he wouldn't know anyway. It's all a bit confusing to me.
Whoever the dispatcher is that was covering that route at the time of the accident, he's more than likely been suspended with pay indefinitely. It's standard practice to suspend employees like that when a derailment or accident occurs, at least until an investigation can be conducted.
Our papers here are saying that the engineer was texting at 4:20PM with a group of train enthusiasts. The accident occurred around 4:22PM. When a Metrolink worker monitoring the computers noticed that the train hadn’t stopped at a red light he tried to send an emergency message to the engineer. It was too late.
It’s an admission on their part and the honest thing to do. That, alone, will raise all kinds of suspicions, but with the technology as it is, it’s extremely unlikely that they’re wrong. Even if the light itself had burned out the engineer would be under the same obligation to stop.
One of the Metrolink people said there had been signal problems on that stretch.
The fact the the engineer reportedly was texting is damning but I hope the NTSB gets to the bottom of what really happened.
Good point, though naming him so quickly does offer cover for any other individual that may or may not have been at fault.
Lots of unanswered questions at this time, though. Was the signal really red? Was any attempt made to radio the engineer or otherwise warn him? Is there some automation built into the system that would prevent this? Does the dispatcher have any indication of train locations along the tracks?
For heaven’s sake, the airlines have had collision avoidance systems for many years. How about installing such systems on trains? In particular ones that share a track with oncoming traffic. A low cost way to save lives, avoid massive property damage, etc. The Executives of this rail authority should be held criminally liable for negligent homicide. Think that this would happen again if they were so held? No way!
“The Executives of this rail authority should be held criminally liable for negligent homicide.”
Sounds good to me, but don’t hold your breath.
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