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
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.