jlf1961
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Joined: 6/10/2008
From: Somewhere Texas
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
quote:
ORIGINAL: jlf1961
quote:
The Amtrak passenger train that derailed on Monday south of Tacoma, Wash., was traveling on tracks that were equipped with technology to prevent accidents, but the safety feature was not activated, according to the rail service.
The incident killed three people and injured nearly 100 others and has renewed concerns about the safety of U.S. rail lines. The National Transportation Safety Board says the train was travelling at 80 mph on a curve with a posted speed limit of 30 mph. Positive train control technology was installed on the tracks, but was still in the testing phase and not set to be functional until next year, says Jim Blaze, a railroad consultant and economist. source
Oh, and the fact that the positive train control system was shut off might have played a part, since it is designed to prevent such accidents...
I saw an article online and the comments blamed the accident on the GOP Congress for not requiring PTC by 2015, allowing it the deadline to be pushed back to 2018 (which is what was stated in the article as being the new deadline). While PTC would likely have prevented this accident, that PTC isn't mandated by legislation yet doesn't put onus on Congress. PTC was installed on this line, but it was still the testing phase (according to your article). Is the line operator responsible for the accident since PTC wasn't yet functional? OR, does it come down to who was supposed to be in control of the train?
Like the Amtrak accident in PA, it may come down to the engineer not doing his job properly. Iirc, in the PA accident, the engineer was texting heading into the curve. While I'm neither claiming nor accusing this engineer of being on his phone, it is clear something prevented the train from slowing down. Whether that was a hardware or software failure that prevented the engineer's commands to slow down, or the engineer wasn't even giving the command to slow down, needs to be figured out to help prevent future incidents.
Prayers to the families of those that died, and to those who survived, and their families.
Sorry, the blame cannot fall on the GOP congress.
PTC is a complicated system. And there are just a few firms that have invested in the tech specific tools needed to install it.
PTC is easy and fast to install on commuter lines around cities, you have few natural obstacles to contend with.
However, we are talking about 233,000 miles of track in the US.
Installing PTC has the same problem that the old "modernizing the US rail network for high speed train traffic" idea has. A lot of track and few companies that actually do the work.
Let me give you a bit of a history lesson.
When the US government started Amtrak, congress also began funding the high speed rail initiative. Dems and the GOP were all for the idea, as was the citizens of the country.
The whole plan was to provide passenger rail service to every city and town with a track and station.
But, there was a major problem, a lot of the rail lines were sub standard, and the three companies that specialized in rail line construction were already way behind on existing contracts.
So the scope of Amtrak was scaled back.
Then the railroad industry decided to do away with double track mainlines in order to help speed up modernization of the track network....
Which made sense but, well, if you have to shut down a stretch of track for work, and there is no siding to bypass the stretch, trains cant run.
And if you are running passenger and freight trains on a single mainline, well you see the problem.
So, back in the late 80's and early 90's a few Dems and GOP congressmen got together and came up with the idea that since the US Army Corps of Engineers are tasked with maintaining the dedicated track used exclusively by the Defense Department, they figured that the Corps of Engineers should be made responsible for ALL the train tracks in the US, you know, like they are responsible for maintaining highway over passes and such?
Well, the Corps of Engineers cannot be tasked or even used to maintain something the US government does not own. And the US government does not own the rail road tracks, the rail road companies do.
So, in order to put the corps of engineers on the project of fixing up the rail road tracks, the US would have to nationalize the rail industry.
And even the staunchest left leaning socialist democrats of the time thought that was a bullshit idea.
In short, there is a fucking ton of money sitting in a fund to help pay for the modernization of the US rail road system, and not enough people to actually put it to use.
And while it does not make the news, I mean it is not one of the 'glory' programs to garner votes in elections, every president and every congress every year looks at the problem and does a face palm behind closed doors.
No one wants the rail road industry nationalized, in the United States it would be more problems both financially and logistically than it is worth.
And working on rail road tracks has become a tech heavy process. No longer do you have thousands of men pounding spikes and laying rails, you have machines to do that. And those are expensive, and in the long run, not worth investing in for short term contracts.
I mean, think about it, these four primary rail contractors invest few hundred million in equipment and hire enough people to do the jobs, they could probably have the entire rail network capable of handling 100mph traffic in 10 years.
After that, they would only need a third of the equipment and manpower to cover maintenance contracts.
Even if the railroads ran two track mainlines every where, in fact, they would probably need less, since the wear and tear on the rails would be cut in half.
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RE: Object on tracks caused Amtrak derailment? - 
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