SouthernRailway wrote:twropr wrote:What I don't understand is why Empire train #250, which arrived Croton-Harmon on time at 7:55 am, could not have been advanced at tt speed to Yonkers and authorized to operate at restricted speed to CP 12 for a visual inspection. Once at CP 12, the TE crew could have advised the Met's RTC (dispatcher) that CP 12 was not fouled and the RTC could have displayed a signal for the Empire Line, allowing the Amtrak's to run after that.
I know this is Monday morning (dah - I mean Sunday afternoon) quarterbacking, but you can see the logic of my question,
Andy
The Federal Railroad Administration has detailed requirements for railroad track inspections, and railroads themselves do as well. I'd think that both a walking inspection and a hi-rail inspection (to check for track geometry and damage) would need to be done before a passenger train could come through.
As the area of the derailment is a decent distance from CP 12, I suspect it's more a factor of "lot's of emergency personal, reporters, equipment, gawkers in the area". It's probably far safer to disrupt rail traffic for a few hundred (or even more) Amtrak passengers than risk someone else getting injured, etc.
That said though it's still probably close enough that they want to make sure the switch points didn't cause something to go wrong that wasn't evident until 1000' later.
This is an area where being conservative is probably a GOOD thing.
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