by realtype
kevikens wrote:I am nothing more than a railfan. The news at about 4:30 PM says the engineer of the commuter train "fell asleep". Is there not some kind of "dead man" device that would have kicked in and sent off alarms or even put the train into an emergency stop ? Also if an engineer in the cab had been stricken how would anyone else on the train have known ? Is not the conductor insulated from the cab back in the coaches ? Is there anyone else in that cab with the engineer ? Maybe having fireman in the cabs with the engineer is still a good idea. P.S. As nothing more than a rail fan I apologize for any ignorance of what actually goes on in train cabs ahead of time.The media doesn't know anything about how a railroad operates. To them the only explanation was that the engineer fell asleep, yet there are many other reasons to look into. In the '96 MARC/Amtrak crash the engineer also passed a red, but was wide awake, he just forgot he had previously passed a yellow before making a station stop. So he proceeded as if he was all clear, and couldn't stop in time for the red signal.