Some of the tracks at Gladstone, N.J., and New York City's Penn Station have bumpers, and NJT trains sometimes use them. Will N.J. Transit's new policy about 2 crew people in the cab also apply at those locations?
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NJT HOBOKEN TERMINAL ACCIDENT THREAD
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Right now it appears to be limited to Hoboken and Atlantic City. Could this be because the locomotives are on the west end of the trains and there's no practical way to get the conductor to the head end with electric loco's?
Glenn
Head-end View wrote:Seems to me it was management decisions like that, (that safety was too expensive) that's the reason railroads are in the current predicament with the Federal govt. mandating PTC by a certain date. The railroads should have taken care of business, and because they didn't the government finally had to mandate it.Does anyone get the impression that implementing PTC is going to be inexpensive? If no, where does this money come from? I'll certainly take my chances with NJT, as-is, over seeing massive service cuts. Of course, I'd prefer that we appropriately fund NJT through taxation, etc. You can kill a LOT of people on a train, and I don't think PTC is an unreasonable thing to have. Sure, not that many people are killed, but why shouldn't we implement something that, under the wrong circumstances, could really kill or injure hundreds of people?
|=| R. Novosielski |=|
The only place where a safety stop is made in the Baltimore/DC area is...
...BWI Airport on the Light Rail line, due to history. Since the accidents, I have never seen a LR vehicle go straight into BWI; it always will stop, the operator reach out to punch a track select, and then proceed very slowly under ATP setting of 5 mph.
Right now, there's not much history that we know of. Yes, we have a death, but go back through the history of Hoboken. Has this exact scenario happened before?
...BWI Airport on the Light Rail line, due to history. Since the accidents, I have never seen a LR vehicle go straight into BWI; it always will stop, the operator reach out to punch a track select, and then proceed very slowly under ATP setting of 5 mph.
Right now, there's not much history that we know of. Yes, we have a death, but go back through the history of Hoboken. Has this exact scenario happened before?
ryanov wrote:Does anyone get the impression that implementing PTC is going to be inexpensive? If no, where does this money come from? I'll certainly take my chances with NJT, as-is, over seeing massive service cuts.PTC is not cheap ... and it was an unfunded mandate (although some federal funds have been granted to specific railroads who need help). Finding the money is up to each railroad and agency.
PTC is not cost effective ... railroads figured out a long time ago that it was cheaper to crash their trains, kill people and pay claims and settlements than pay for PTC. The PTC mandate gets the railroads beyond the actuarial decision. I'll let others decide for themselves if that makes us more civilized or less civilized to value human life over money.
Once PTC is installed adding new sections of track is an incremental cost. Perhaps agencies will make the actuarial decision to keep terminals exempt. Perhaps the NTSB will recommend and the FRA will enforce less exemptions.
PTC saves lives; funding rail and mass transit projects that reduce auto use also saves lives by reducing accidents and air pollution. One wonders if diverting money that would have gone into transit projects into PTC will save more or less lives in the long run.
Jon
Jon
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination that some things are more important than fear.
for the PTC loving tinfoil hat rail buffs !! read this :
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blo ... channel=00" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blo ... channel=00" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
If Conductors are in charge, why are they promoted to be Engineer???
Retired Triebfahrzeugführer. I am not a moderator.
Retired Triebfahrzeugführer. I am not a moderator.
jonnhrr wrote:PTC saves lives; funding rail and mass transit projects that reduce auto use also saves lives by reducing accidents and air pollution. One wonders if diverting money that would have gone into transit projects into PTC will save more or less lives in the long run.Is this a joke? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you actually believe that spilled koolaide. Or perhaps you're a politician.
Jon
MCL1981 wrote:I was actually serious. So which part of what I said is false?jonnhrr wrote:PTC saves lives; funding rail and mass transit projects that reduce auto use also saves lives by reducing accidents and air pollution. One wonders if diverting money that would have gone into transit projects into PTC will save more or less lives in the long run.Is this a joke? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or you actually believe that spilled koolaide. Or perhaps you're a politician.
Jon
- That adding mass transit reduces auto use?
- That reducing auto use reduces fatal car accidents?
- That auto use is a leading cause of air pollution and air pollution results in deaths for people with respiratory complications?
- That the amount of money available to the government is finite so money budgeted for PTC will not be spent on transit?
OK I might be wrong on the last one, we can always borrow more from China and print a few more million to pay for it.
Jon
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination that some things are more important than fear.
jonnhrr wrote:I was actually serious. So which part of what I said is false?I believe the part that the nay sayers are focused on is "PTC saves lives". There are a lot of haters when it comes to PTC.
You're actually making a correlation that spending more money on PTC will save lives by reducing lung cancer and other respiratory problems.... That's laughable. And you're making a correlation between PTC and increasing mass rail transit to reduce auto transit. No such correlation exists.
If you want to look at saving lives on the railroads, you should look at the number of deaths at grade crossings vs number of deaths in PTC preventable accidents. I think you'll find that if saving lives is the goal, someone made a very poor decision. And your falling for it.
If you want to look at saving lives on the railroads, you should look at the number of deaths at grade crossings vs number of deaths in PTC preventable accidents. I think you'll find that if saving lives is the goal, someone made a very poor decision. And your falling for it.
Sorry if I have created a rabbit hole here. All I was trying to say is that there is a fixed amount of money available for transit. You can either spend it on PTC which saves lives or you can spend it on increasing the availability of transit which also saves lives. I wondered if the latter might actually save more lives in the long run given that transit even without PTC is pretty safe to begin with. I'm not trying to make a correlation, just saying as a society we have to make choices where to use limited resources.
If the moderators feel we are going off topic into yet another PTC argument, feel free to remove these posts.
Jon
If the moderators feel we are going off topic into yet another PTC argument, feel free to remove these posts.
Jon
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination that some things are more important than fear.
I see. Well, I would agree the money being spent on PTC can be spent on other things that far more useful than PTC, and would save far more lives than PTC. I don't however believe it is a fraction of enough money to make a remarkable change in private auto vs mass transit if spent on transit projects instead. You'd need a lot more than that. And you'd need the political power to make it happen. And you'd need the psychological power to make people want it. Not to mention you'd need to bulldoze a lot of homes.
Spend it on grade crossings instead. Actual quantifiable lives saved.
Spend it on grade crossings instead. Actual quantifiable lives saved.
Question -
On the Cab Car involved in the incident. Can the throttle just be advanced by pushing on it or must a push button detent be depressed for every change of throttle position - up or down?
If there is no push button detent I can easily see how the throttle can be advanced 'without the engineer realizing' that it is happening; however the sensation of increasing speed should have identified that something was amiss.
Explaining the 38 seconds will be a monumental problem.
On the Cab Car involved in the incident. Can the throttle just be advanced by pushing on it or must a push button detent be depressed for every change of throttle position - up or down?
If there is no push button detent I can easily see how the throttle can be advanced 'without the engineer realizing' that it is happening; however the sensation of increasing speed should have identified that something was amiss.
Explaining the 38 seconds will be a monumental problem.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
it advances by pulling it towards engineer, it goes to idle when pushed forewards
If Conductors are in charge, why are they promoted to be Engineer???
Retired Triebfahrzeugführer. I am not a moderator.
Retired Triebfahrzeugführer. I am not a moderator.