Posted on 02/07/2018 7:02:39 AM PST by reaganaut1
The only good news for Amtrak is that none of its passengers died in the latest two crashes. Last Wednesday’s, with a train full of GOP congressmen, killed a passenger in a garbage truck. Sunday’s, in which an Amtrak train collided with a CSX freight, killed two Amtrak employees.
At least these weren’t inexplicable cases of an Amtrak engineer driving off a curve at three times the posted speed limit, the type of accident that killed eight in Philadelphia in 2015 and three in Seattle in December.
Amtrak has problems to work through, but rail collisions are actually pretty routine and thus a complication for our federal government’s strange obsession with making passenger trains go faster.
Of the 719 people killed in U.S. rail accidents in 2016, two were paying customers and 581 were “trespassers,” individuals killed by a train while violating some barrier or warning sign. Another 117 were “nontrespassers,” or people on foot or in cars who were killed while not in violation of any barrier or warning signal.
If 719 people were killed by airliners every year, Americans would go ape.
A bit of personal history: The girl who sat in front of me in eight-grade math was killed crossing the tracks when she apparently mistook an express for a local. Later, a chum and I were crossing a trestle over a local creek when trains arrived at both ends simultaneously. We managed to scramble out of the way but a few years later my friend was killed by the Paoli local.
OK, kids are kept on a tighter leash than in the 1970s, but a rail trestle near Pittsford, N.Y., still had to be outfitted in the 1990s with federal cameras and loudspeakers to discourage fatal trespassing.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Cue the dusty 78RPM recording of “we need to be FULLY FUNDED...”
Oh good God.
“If airlines”
Clearly the fault of most incidents is outside the RR. These are not even real “crashes”, but a pedestrian/driver getting in the way of the train.
And BTW, the stat was RAILROAD accidents, not AMTRAK. Lots of other freighters out there.
I’d like to see people getting in the way of an aircraft. Airports are the only opportunity for that, and believe me, airports are also VERY tight-butt about their property and tresspassers. Just because RRs have only a narrow path of property doesn’t mean it need not be respected.
I was hiking in Spain several years ago and was stuck up against a high speed rail line. I walked for miles until an overpass allowed me to cross to the other side. That's typical in Europe.
Do I want public funds spent on high speed rail in the U.S.? No way.
If I want to ride a beautiful train I'll go to Europe.
If I want a luxurious bus ride I'll go to Mexico.
Here I'll drive or take a plane.
“See tracks, think train”.
And remember, trains win all ties—and not just the ones supporting the rails.
Amtrak keeps telling us that government can’t manage a 2-car funeral, let alone trains. It also tells us that government involvement in education and health care is turning those into train wrecks, too.
A smartphone with a GPS geofencing app could do some of what the vaunted PTC system that was federally mandated that the railroads say they can’t afford.
If you can buy technology that alerts you if your teenager is speeding right off the shelf, how can these people even sleep at night, knowing lives could be saved?
Megabus is both cool and cheap.
If we let public roads cross runways with nothing more than flashing red lights to stop the traffic when a plane is taking off, we might kill more than 719 people every year.
What logic keeps telling us too ...
Stop hiring the affirmation action workforce. Start hiring the qualified. Stop lowering the bar.
Don’t try to beat the train.
You WILL lose.
I had the displeasure of having to participate in six collision incidents/fatalities last year.
Two were collisions at a grade crossing, and the other four were trespassers on the right of way.
Every single one was easily preventable.
Under which agency does Amtrak fall?
Audit?
How do we know the guy in the garbage truck wasn’t dead already and that was an attempt to get the train to derail to kill and/or injure those on board?
30,000 killed on highways each year. If 30,000 were killed in planes, the public would go ape.
So shut up about trains.
“So shut up about trains.”
—
I agree.
One of our less intelligent posters yesterday,on this subject,referred to what is happening on the RRs as “carnage”.
That was my laugh of the day.
.
Hulcher Services must be raking in the doe cleaning up all these wrecks.
Exactly. And it was stupid anyway - only TWO people ON trains were killed! That’s a joke compared to car deaths - with or w/o the pedestrians!
“Do I want public funds spent on high speed rail in the U.S.? No way.”
A month ago, I took the 91 Amtrak, (the one that recently crashed in SC) great way to travel, the best!
So expensive. If Amntrak is using public funds then they need to cut ticket costs in half. Across the board.
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