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| Re: KTLA CONFIRMS: Re: Metrolink engineer texting with railfans (681143) | |||
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Re: KTLA CONFIRMS: Re: Metrolink engineer texting with railfans |
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Posted by Broadway Lion on Sun Sep 14 12:51:31 2008, in response to Re: KTLA CONFIRMS: Re: Metrolink engineer texting with railfans, posted by Michael549 on Sun Sep 14 12:14:07 2008. Most railroads DO NOT have trippers like the subway system has.Some have other positive train control protocols that will stop trains, but they are neither required nor widely implemented. Many railroads do NOT have model boards. Indeed there are VERY FEW interlocking towers west of the Mississippi at all. In most places, if a train needs to move from one track to another, the train will stop, the conductor will climb down and throw the switch by hand. The train will move into the pocket, and stop, while the brakeman climbs down from the caboose to re set the switch to the mane lion. Now can you see the problem here? Trains no longer have cabeese, and so there is no brakeperson to restore the switch. Yes the opposing traian *could* stop and throw their own damn switch, but that is not very productive, and since it is usually the smaller, lighter train that is shunted into the pocket they do not want to stop and restart the heavier train. The conductor could wait for his own train to pass, and then walk back to the locomotive, but out here trains are one mile + long, and they do not want them stopped for that length of time. Enter BNSF and their "semi-automatic" switches. The Conductor climbs down and moves the switch: he actually has to "pump" the switch over against a huge spring or some other device. Then when the train has cleared, the equipment detects this and releases the switch back to its normal position. Pretty cool, eh? BUT NO INTERLOCKING TOWER TO KNOW WHAT SWITCH IS WHICH WAY. Actually BNSF has a central control point in Ft. Worth, Texas, from where the whole railroad is dispatched. (Actually, it *could* be in Bangalore, India for all the equipment knows) Trains are tracked by GPS and displayed on monitors. But this accident did occur in signaled area, and in an area that was dispatched by Metrolink. Obviously the equipment knew immediately of the problem and undoubtedly dropped the signals (if any) against the UP movement, but what is a train going to do? It takes two miles to stop and the offending train is less than two miles away and accelerating obliviously towards it. The rate of closure was estimated to be between 60 and 80 mph yielding an impact time of about 60 seconds from time of infraction. LION thinks that crews knead to pay attention to signals under penalty of death. ROAR |
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