Posted on 05/15/2015 4:20:44 PM PDT by MeshugeMikey
PHILADELPHIA — An assistant conductor on the Amtrak train that derailed on Tuesday believes she heard the engineer tell another regional train operator in a radio transmission that the train had been struck by something just before the accident, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
At a news conference on Friday, Robert L. Sumwalt, the safety board official who is leading the investigation, said the F.B.I. had been asked to examine what he described as a fist-size impact area found on the lower left side of the train’s windshield. Officials said that the F.B.I. had been called in because it has the forensics expertise needed for the investigation, but that it had not yet begun its analysis.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can’t have a member of the gaystapo looking bad.
he’s in a huge train....he is generally safe where he is at...the train is going fast already....unless the supposed “shooter of the projectile” was in an equally fast drone speeding along side of the train, the train was out of any “danger” immediately....
for the train experts out there...does acceleration need constant effort?....iows....the engineer had to actually do something to make it speed up?....
This certainly explains why the queer engineer can’t remember anything. Problem solved. Haha
“I don’t think that is correct.”
At twice the speed, your “hitting surface,” the front of the train, goes through twice the volume of space. If the random flying objects are distributed evenly in space, then you have twice the chance of hitting one.
It is simple math.
No it isn’t. You go through twice as much space, but for only half as long. You’re oversimplifying and non simple problem. You also don’t know the direction of travel of the object.
” If the random flying objects are distributed evenly in space...”
And if they aren’t?
This train is electric drive. No big engine noise to confuze the cashier. The throttle rotates forward with click stops and in this case the stops represent about 10 mph intervals. Rotating it forward requires both a push and a warp sideways to get past the next stop.
What’s baffling me is that no one seems to remember that the engine rolled sideways a complete 360, landing on its wheels, while sliding forward from 102 mph to zero. Why wouldn’t the windshield have a few dings? Plowing thru that much dirt and rail hardware is GOING to scratch the paint. And by the way: the cabin of that engine is one of the safest places on earth. The whole engine is built on a 2”thick slab of steel, for weight, and all one has to do is STAY IN IT. And the front of the cabin is more or less fighter plane grade being built to handle speeds over 125 mph, windshield and all.
Well, I’ve been suspicious about the reports from the get-go and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Also, when they keep changing, it is kind of a red flag.
Now you’re just being an idiot. Random implies even. Go away.
Yep all on my Father’s side went to Nativity.My Father worked the railroad and my Grandfather owned a dock right there.
You posted to me jackass. Piss off.
I’m not sure he had intent to do so, so I am not sure 1st degree intentional is correct. If it can be shown he did have intent I have no problem with that.
2nd degree homicide, seems a no brainer, manslaughter at the very least.
And then add in any other kinds of charges ofr the injured, and any reckless endangerment, etc while operating a vehicle, just layer it on.
Since this is an all-electric train (and all electronic speed/motor control unlike older electrics with relay stepped transformers) it would seem to boil down to two possibilities.. 1)the electronics was told to accelerate by physical command or 2)the electronics accelerated on its own without a physical command.
For the first instance, the throttle must be advanced. I've never been in the cab of an operating toaster, er, electric locomotive, but in a diesel it's referred to as 'notching up' (from idle up to 'run 8' - unless they've changed terminology on me) which (again on a diesel) increases the rpm's of the diesel which in turn increases the electrical output to the motors on the trucks. I would assume that a similar action is required on an electric which in this instance would generate an input to the electronics to cause acceleration.
If the investigation reveals that the electronics in fact received such an 'accelerate' signal from the throttle it can safely be assumed that the engineer for whatever reason physically advanced the throttle. Which will of course then require finding out why. And we will probably need tinfoil hats...
For the second instance, electronic drives (actually ANYTHING man-made) are not 100% fail safe and strange and non-salubrious manifestations do occur which of course could/would be the result of a massive fault of some sort that managed to bypass all sorts of fault-protection devices. In a normal fault situation most electronic drives shut themselves off but a long time ago I quit saying 'it can't do that' as I witness the piece of electronica I was troubleshooting do something that it absolutely was not supposed to be capable of doing and remain online. (Wearing the Field Engineer's hat means that when that happens you are supposed to figure out why so you can call up the 'desk engineer' and say 'Boy, did you blow it', or words to that effect - and then explain why so that it gets fixed before some lawyer gets involved...)
In most applications the indications of such a cataclysm in the electronica will be buried in a fault log somewhere in the bowels of the beast and may take a bit of time to decypher the info - and by then the ozone and smoke will be long gone.
In reading up on the ACS-64 and the Siemens blurbs, this piece of technology has a rather extensive diagnostics built into the software. Again, nothing is cast in stone here, but it can be a really safe assumption that if there was a fault of some sort that caused such an event in the Siemens package it would show up on the diagnostics log somewhere, although maybe not so clearly defined.
IF there is such an instance either we will hear of it as a result of the portion of the investigation that is made public, or there will be some sudden and very quiet revision notices issued to affect modifications to the design that will not be publicized but will leak out in the future.
If there is a third possibility, I'm not seeing it...
The speed is the answer I think he tried to suicide but changed his mind.He is a very strange person.JMO
HUH?
I'm hard-pressed to find anything in HTRN's comments that would enable any normal speaker of the English language to draw your particular interpretation from them...
Possibly you are claiming some Divine Inspiration that enabled you to know that?
Just sayin'..
Well, yes.
Once we knew the speed it eliminated bombs, derailing by external means, debris - a host of other externals.
The thing that now needs to be determined is how that (speed) occurred - intentional, accidental, or catastrophic failure of equipment...
It's a lot shorter than that. The time to go from 0 to 125 mph with 8 loaded cars (the wrecked train had 7) is 2:45. The time to go from 70 to 106 mph is just over 45 seconds. View the link at my post #118.
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