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Anybody who knows a descent amount about rail traffic movements will also know how much of a pain in the the RTC's out there can be. Who's to say that they didnt line the switch after they had gone passed their clear to stop signal?? I am not blaming the crew on this one because I dont have all the details, I am only speculating...
keep in mind these class action law suits the people may only see a small percentage of the final $10 mil say 50k it really depends on the number of people fileing how its gonna get split....but looks like the vultures are at it again....
I dont know about you, but I wouldnt mind 50k lol. But going about it this way just isnt cool. Just like I read a story about a kid gettin hit by a train (put him in a few pieces) and part of his body struck an old woman and broke her hip. She sued the deceased boy for neglegence. Some people...
Makes me feel like whoever thinks that is a good idea outa be shot n pissed on. Isnt the jobless rate high enough already?? There are lots more killed each year in war so what are they gonna do...have an automated war??
You would rather human soldiers were getting shot at?
It's interesting that one of the people who died in this train wreck had recently accept a job that killed him/her before they got to do non-trainee work. That sort of flies in the face of automation vs unemployment. I'm sure that person would rather be filling out an unemployment form than filling out a casket.
And besides, I'm not saying to remove the humans from the locomotives. I'm just suggesting that real-time remote reporting and control in the locomotives might be beneficial. Computers break, but humans clearly aren't perfect either. Together there might be a much higher reliability, and efficiency, in day to day operations.
Trains are the simplest form of transportation to control, and yet the automation is probably the lowest. Ships, airplanes, even road vehicles have limited autopilot now. Why not mainline trains? Have you seen those cars that can parallel park themselves? Holy cow that's amazing! Programming a train to slow down before it reaches a troubled section of track is about the simplest form of automation I can think of. We're already doing that in the model industry with various DCC technologies. In fact, I bet they're already doing that in train yards with those R/C locomotives.
But you're probably ready to shoot and pee on me. If you read this far.
BTW: I am not trying to blame the crew on this, from what the TSB said, there is something that went wrong and in no way do i believe 3 crew members would ever run two sets of lights and let themselves and their train be put in such danger.
Actually all that's been confirmed is that the train was going way too fast for the crossover and no brake application was ever made.
The investigation will attempt to ascertain WHY it was going that fast through the crossover. Whether there was a signal failure or the crew misread the signal (or whether there was some other factor) is what the investigation will try to determine.
Anybody who knows a descent amount about rail traffic movements will also know how much of a pain in the ass the RTC's out there can be. Who's to say that they didnt line the switch after they had gone passed their clear to stop signal?? I am not blaming the crew on this one because I dont have all the details, I am only speculating...
If they were travelling at speed, and the last signal was "Clear to Stop" (Approach) then they should have been stopping before they got to the signal.
If the dispatcher cancels a signal that was already cleared, I'm pretty sure the CTC systems have a 5-minute lockout before any switches or signals conflicting with the original route can be changed. Safety feature to prevent exactly what you suggest. A signal can go red in front of an approaching train, but the dispatcher can't suddenly throw a switch in front of them.
The other factor here is that the VIA train would have just made a station stop at Aldershot, and the plant where the derailment occurred is the first signal(s) east of the VIA/GO station that the train would have encountered. According to TSB the train was still accelerating [from their station stop]. So they didn't really pass any previous signal (that is, they had stopped for a while after passing the last signal).
