Brian Buss, 31, of Westlake Village was among those at the Chatsworth train station who signed a get-well card for Bob Hildebrand, the conductor in the rear car of Metrolink 111. Hildebrand was hurt in the crash.
Posted on 09/12/2008 4:48:21 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Metro Link train in flames...dozens of ambulances en-route to the scene...
All diesel-electric locomotives require an operator with constant pressure on the "deadman" (great choice of words, huh?) pedal.
He wasn’t in the engine? I had thought he didn’t survive. I thought he was in the engine at the time of the crash.
BTW, perhaps you meant the Conductor, who was in car 3.
So I’ll ask the question I don’t want to ask. Based upon historical precedent, are we looking at Bob (the conductor) spending the rest of his life in prison for 30 or so counts of manslaughter?
The E.R. contact seemed to think he was going to be okay. Like I said, he was awake and talking to his parents. I’m not in contact, so I don’t know if he had other injuries. If so, they must have been manageable.
I agree this was a major mistake. What a sad situation...
For all we know, the engineer may have had some medical problem too prior to the accident though.
Thanks for your concern.
Yes. Thanks for the correction.
That’s a good point. Thank you.
It would be interesting to know if there are any exceptions to that. I would hope not.
No problem at all. Thanks for the response. I was just trying to make sure I understood things correctly.
One would expect a derailment after a 30 mph head on collision. So parenthetically putting that in the title is uninformative.
The chances of a derailment and a collision independently at the same time is statistically extremely unlikely. That would be newsworthy.
So which is it?
I have not seen more than one working conductor when I rode the train. I have seen more than one on a train going back to a certain station.
It’s all over the news. And there’s plenty of details in this thread. Are you actually unaware of the situation, therefore honestly confused by the title, or are you looking to pick a fight?
A 25th fatality is now being reported by the hospital responsible for treating this casualty.
Two female casualties (fatal) remain unidentified at this time.
From what I read, it's a collision. The title is confusing, unless I missed something in the story. Is it too hard to simple have answered it's one or the other of the two scenarios I offered?
You know what the facts are pertaining to this terrible tragedy. You don’t need a perfectly composed title, to tell you what happened in LA. Did you see the pictures? Did you see the violent collision? Did you see the derailed cars? Did you figure out what happened? I’ve caught you stirring trouble. Now you are insulting my intelligence. Out of respect for others on this thread, I’m not going to answer you further on this board.
Per KCAL 9, a group of teen train junkies, had made friends with the Metro engineer. They often video’d and talked to the engineer, even having his cell number. At 4:20 one of the teens recieved a text message from the engineer giving him an update on the trains schedule. The kid sent a short text back. The crash happened at 4:22.
As long as he wasn’t in the cab. Sounds like the engineer is solo on the commuter trains - single point of failure.
Thanks for your observation Thomas. That had been my perception, but I didn’t want to voice it without anything much to base it on.
E-N-G-I-N-E-E-R
not the conductor
You know, it’s the weirdest thing when you are watching a disaster of this magnitude unfold. I was there for all the California earthquakes back to 1960 something, and I saw people pull together and help one another, and this was no exception. We had three neighbors involved in this accident this time. The one I mentioned lost the mother of the family. A dysfunctional family on every front, the daughter left the night her mother died and went to a show in Hollywood. She had a date. Her dad and brother were in Hawaii. They saw no reason to leave early. So they didn’t come in until today. Another neighbor’s dad was suppose to be on the train. He missed it. His family were so grateful that his meeting ran over. Another family in the neighborhood expected the dad to take the train. He changed his mind before he left that morning and took his car. We didn’t know where he was until he drove up. No one thought to look in the garage. Church today with him was a celebration. You just never know. I was thinking all day yesterday if I was on that train and died, would my daughter cancel a date. Until she walked in the door at church this morning when I knew she had other plans today. I wish I had reached out to that family. Maybe it would have been different for that poor woman on the train. Maybe her and her daughter would have been in Hawaii.
People make their own beds. Please don’t grind over what you may or may not have been able to accomplish.
That man, his son, and his daughter will be the ones grinding over this some day.
Sounds like a mess.
I’d be more respectful of my first wife than that, even now.
People can both shock and amaze you. Many private individuals jumped in and helped with the early rescue efforts. Some brought out their own supplies to help.
The bad ones shock you and the good ones bring tears to your eyes.
Thank you for mentioning your observations. Some of them were very heartwarming.
Thank you. I made a copy.
Brian Buss, 31, of Westlake Village was among those at the Chatsworth train station who signed a get-well card for Bob Hildebrand, the conductor in the rear car of Metrolink 111. Hildebrand was hurt in the crash.
Dig up that switch!
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