Right just to clear a few things up... First of all trains are not driven automatically. They do not have steering wheels. They are driven by a highly competent driver who undergoes 1 year of training to become one. Driving a train is a very difficult thing to do. They take a very long time to stop so unlike cars you have to know the route off by heart. This includes signals, stations, sidings, speed restictions, tunnels, bridges, gradients adn lots of other things. The speed restrictions are not like on the roads either. To put into perspective how long it takes a train to stop. A high speed train travelling at 125mph will in normal conditions take about 3 miles to stop if the driver was braking normally. If it was an emergency it takes a mile and a quarter to stop. Heavy freight trains travelling at 60mph can take 1 mile to stop if the emergency brakes are applied. The driver also has detailed knowledge of rules adn regulations which are very strict. He also has veyr detailed knowledge of the traction he is driving. He will be tested on all of these features every 6 months. I nthe cab are various safety systems. Amongst these is a "DSD". This is a pedal which the driver must keep pressed. If this becomes depressed for more than 3 seconds then the emergency brakes will come on. Also, it will bleep every 60 seconds and the driver will have to take his oot off the pedaland place it back on within 7 seconds otherwise the emergency brakes would be applied. Therefore it is impossible for a driver to be shagging someone as the train is in motion. JUst to clear up something with these incidents awswell... The stripping off was done by a TRAIN MANAGER (not the driver) of a Central Trains service. Thses trains only travel up to 100mph and he wasn't driving it, he was in the back cab. The shagging incident wasalso involving a train manager. Don't believe what the press says. They bullshit all the time!
Thanks very much for your post! I suspected much of what you say, particularly considering that commuter and subway trains here in the USA all have a motorman's footswtich, often called a 'deadman switch' which causes the train to come to a stop when pressure is released. It's a safety in case the engineer has a heart attack, and I see that in a case like this it's also helpful in forcimg him to keep his mind on the job.
Even though the danger to the public was in reality far less than what the Sun suggests, it's still a terrible example for a manager to set for the other employees. I still hope that all involved will be fired.