I had a project that required heavy cranes crossing Amtrak tracks.
To say they were incompetent, is to understate it.
After meetings at their control center on S. Canal, their communications guy was no show!They had three or four observers, but the one with a radio to talk to the trains;no.
After two hours and 35 workers waiting he shows.
Half way in a light is spotted coming at us!!!
The radio guy is able to contact them, a machine that cleans the ballast; huge and sounds like the horns of hell.
They didn’t see it on the schedule!!!!
That can ruin your day.
I had to shut down the four (memory says four) tracks running east out of Kansas City north of the Missouri River. We were setting bridge beams for a moving walkway connector from a parking garage to a recreational facility.
It has been twenty-five years ago but as I remember it we had 28 Iron Workers, Eight operators, five cranes, all on Easter Sunday at triple-time. Plus about 25k in special bonds and insurance for the rail lines benefit.
This accident, from the track mounted equipment, appears to be Amtrak killing their own internal workers or internal contractors. An outside contractor would not be working on the tracks without them shut down with flagmen miles back in each direction (paid for by the outside contractor of course.)