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 ...
It's just over 45 seconds for a loaded train with 8 cars; the wrecked train was pulling one less car. View the video in my #118. Those engines are FAST, going from 0 to 125 in 2:45 minutes.
the dials didnt do a lot for me. I had trouble concentrating on them
I was off by about 10-15 seconds; post #290 says the NTSB calculated the time from 70 mph to impact as 65 seconds topping 100 mph at 16 seconds before impact (49 seconds from 70 to 100 mph and a few more to 106). I read else where he applied the brakes at 3 seconds before impact but speed had only dropped to 102 mph when he went off the rails.
Reaching as low as you can go.
He did it.Had to throw it into gear 3 time to get to 100 miles per hour.He’s gay.His facebook page has been scrubbed to 2014.Where’s his boyfriend that he wanted to marry.Suicide and change of mind.Also distubed-penis pic’s and shaving pubic hair and flushing down toilet video.Not normal.
Guess Mayor Nutter will rip up the new gay walkways he had installed.
Except for the speedometer, I couldn’t read the others, either, though I’m sure the two gauges to the left are air brake pressures, usually the engine and train brakes. If you look closely to the far right side, you can see a bit of the speed controls; note the words “Cab signals...”, “Maximum authorized speed” and “Time to Penalty.” They were disabled for this test but if they had been installed and working they would have alerted him that his speed was incorrect and if he ignored it, would have set the brakes automatically.
I’m not sure suicide, but certainly not concentrating and not normal if the pics were ones he posted. One thing’s for sure for all of us, anything you post on the net stays on the net and can never be completely wiped.
BTW, I’m pretty sure if he’s charged with a crime, his ACLU lawyers will make sure that his choice of lifestyle and those postings will never come out in court.
“...anything you post on the net stays on the net and can never be completely wiped”
Unless you’re Hillary!
The two questions that come to my mind when I think about it being mechanical failure.
1) Why did he not call this out over the radio to dispatch/other trains to let them know of a possible runaway train? He seemed to have plenty of time to do so before the crash
2) If it was a system failure that caused it to speed up on its own, why did he not hit the emergency brakes when he first noticed it happening? We know they worked, since he hit them at the curve.
Yes but did he breakup with his boyfriend right before this.My bet he did.Weird man.Who scrubbed the facebook.If it was him he has something to hide.
Don't know about the efficiency of the Amtrak fleet's brakes, but braking the train is the same-old-same-old - Ol' George Westinghouse's air brakes (of course with a modification or two since he designed them..)
The passenger cars have disk brakes (better than the older shoe on rim still used on freight cars) and there is the independent brake on just the locomotive, but braking both normal and emergency is done by brake pipe air pressure reduction. On the video you'll see one of the dial gauges labeled 'brake pipe'..
For an emergency application you big-hole the pipe. I assume but don't know for sure if passenger trains have a device similar in function to a FRED that will open the pipe at the rear also to improve brake application time in an emergency.
I found that it has regenerative braking.
The regen brake works by drawing power from the traction motors and pumping it back onto the catenary. A nifty bit of electronics is needed to make sure what goes back onto the line is in phase with the source (otherwise you have a spectacular 'bolted short' which is similar in appearance to an arc-welder and the secret smoke escapes. It's hard to get it back in the package once that happens.. ;-)
In operation it is similar to the dynamic braking found on diesel-electrics and older tech electrics except in those applications the power is dissipated in a grid resistor array as heat instead of being pumped back into the line. In either case, neither dynamic or regen brakes are used for emergency brake conditions.
You can't really say that's not “Normal” in todays world. Most homosexuals are exhibitionists and crave attention. So this should surprise no one these were videoed...and no doubt many other pictures on the dark web. Police often "scrub" facebook pages or take them down in an investigation.
He might have.
But unless you have a lot more facts than have been revealed to the rest of us neither you nor I nor anyone else KNOWS that for sure. Stating that as a fact is merely speculation.
Had to throw it into gear 3 time to get to 100 miles per hour.
It doesn't take much at all with 8500 HP pulling 7 cars to get it from 70 mph to 100 mph. As the video shows, it can crank 8 cars up to 125 in about two and a half minutes. That said, just what do you mean 'throw it into gear three times'?? No gears, no transmission, just a bunch of electronics and some high HP electric motors. Do you have a source that can further explain your comment?
He’s gay.
Well, yes. That factoid by itself doesn't provide an explanation for anything other than he is a member of a highly vocal 3% minority.
His facebook page has been scrubbed to 2014.Where’s his boyfriend that he wanted to marry.
If anyone's facepagething page had on it what his allegedly did (I dunno - never looked, maybe you did?) a normal person would have scrubbed it just as soon as they came on the national news radar. Boyfriend? Who knows where - in that lifestyle he probably changed boytoys like his socks. Either way, doesn't prove anything other than he had a boytoy which seems consistent with what is known of his lifestyle.
Suicide and change of mind.
That is a very real possibility. In spite of their press releases, that lifestyle is no where near 'gay' in the dictionary sense. Depression and suicide are statistically high but we don't know that to be FACT in this case. Hopefully if that is the case it will be revealed. But I would bet it will take a while for that revelation should it be true.
Also -- pic’s and shaving -- and flushing down toilet video. Not normal.
Again, I agree these are indications of a disturbed individual. But it is not proof of anything more than speculation.
In the end all of these speculations could be true. But at the present time and with the present data we cannot draw that conclusion. Attempting to do so qualifies for that tin-foil hat...
:) So why didn’t they scrubbed the video.Go away.
Yes, those are good questions, and the absence of that response you mention fuels the speculations of operator inattention/intentional activity/incompetence/whatever.
But we can't prove that yet...
An engineer said you had to put it in into 3 gears.Once and push up 2 push up and 3 push up and then he put it on dead man lock and tooted the horn..He change his mind at the last minute.Tooted the horn and slammed on the brakes.Mayor Nutter knows all and said what was happening in that cab.Last post to you.
Your source for this? A locomotive railroad type engineer would not have said that. Such information from any other source is dubious.
Once and push up 2 push up and 3 push up
On what?
and then he put it on dead man lock
The source for your information? For your information there is no dead man switch/lock/control on modern locomotives so whoever sold you that story is doing dope. Or something.
and tooted the horn..
Your source for the information that he blew the horn? <
He change his mind at the last minute.Tooted the horn and slammed on the brakes.
Changed his mind about what? Your source? Or merely your speculation? What is your source for a second horn tootle? And yes, he did go into Emergency seconds before the derailment. That is a fact we know. How it connects to any of the remainder of the story is unknown at this time. If you state more than that it is pure speculation on your part. Unless you happen to have a link to your source.
Mayor Nutter knows all and said what was happening in that cab.
Your source for the information that Nutter has all the information - especially since the investigation is nowhere near complete? You wouldn't possibly be speculating (that is a nicer word than 'inventing') would you?
You make strange and interesting statements not backed up by any logic or fact and you are getting huffy when called on it?
Last post to you.
Have it your way. B'bye.
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