naugatroll wrote:Pretty sure his point was that all the politicians scream about PTC after severe and relatively rare occurrences such as 188, but still do next to nothing about grade crossing incidents which kill far more people on an annual basis...I don't think anyone was writing off the severity of what happened to the victims of 188.
Exactly. I don't care to minimize the loss in the 188 incident, but the politicians make such a big stink out of this when it's less than 1/20th of all railroad fatalities in the US this year. You hear nothing about the grade crossing incidents (including the two little girls in my 58 incident) victims, nothing about any railroaders killed in job-related injuries...
I would also posit that a $15b unfunded mandate on the carriers for better grade crossing safety, although totally unfair, would have far better ROI in terms of lives and dollars than PTC. Probably something like 10x or 100x. But Chuckie Schumer and Dirty Dick Durbin wouldn't have any grieving widows to take their picture with.
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.