Third Ohio Derailment in North Baltimore

when I was a conductor, and we hit a person, the first thing they asked my enigneer, and then myself (i was on the head end as well) was "did you put it in emergency - did you blow the horn, was the headlight on and on bright? were you speeding, and was everything working?" I KNOW they pulled the tapes soon after, because it wouldn't matter what we said, the tapes would prove it. Our statements matching the tapes would just give us creditability. Throttling up before or after impact would almost be considered a jail sentence!!!

if the person were to sue, the tapes would tell all -

Out here in New Jersey, the incident was also reported as a loose chain wrapping around a switch lever, and derailing the train.

Was this the same incident as the car being hit, or was it two seperate incidents?

In normal Air/train brake application, the air flows at a rate of 545 Feet per second. When your train is say 8,000 ft long, it can take up to 5 seconds or more for the air to reduce on the rear of the train and the brakes to start setting up. even in emergency, a long train may take a few seconds to drop the air on the rear. CSX rules require the engineer to place the ETO in emergency when an emergency application occures. As far as the independant usage during an emergency application, it depends on if you were Dynamic braking and had the slake bunched or pulling and slack streched. With the slack bunched, the engineer would bail the independant and immediately apply 20 - 30 lbs of independant brake to keep the slack bunched, not doing so couild cause some serious knuckle and drawbar issues and a very unhappy conductor and RFE. If stretched you bail off the independant so the slack stays stretched, untill the train stops. Trying to bunch up slack in a stretched train in emergency is asking for the slack to come charging up from the rear and potentially pop a car off the tracks. BIG trouble. I was informed this morning by Cleveland crews that there has been a forth derailment near Toledo, Ohio as of last night.

wow CSX is goin to get it from the FRA with all these derailments in a week

Mikey Ward definitely learned from his mentor John Snow how to go cheap on track maintenance. It helps build up their bonuses every year.