Posted on 03/03/2009 2:48:07 PM PST by TCats
WASHINGTON - A commuter train engineer text messaged a promise to a teenage railroad fan — "I'm gonna do all the radio talkin' ... ur gonna run the locomotive" — minutes before a crash that killed 25 people in California last year, according to documents from federal investigators.
The transcript of text messages sent and received by engineer Robert Sanchez were released Tuesday as the National Transportation Safety Board opened a two-day hearing into the Sept. 12 collision in the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth that also injured at least 130 people.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
"Federal investigators said Sanchez sent and received 43 text messages and made four phone calls while on duty that day, including one that he sent 22 seconds before the collision"
About the operator of the Freight Train which had the right of way:
"Investigators also found that the conductor of the Union Pacific train also received and sent numerous text messages while on duty. The conductor tested positive for marijuana, but he was not driving the train at the time of the crash."
This is sad commentary of the state of our Culture - Drugs and Texting. These people literally have lives in their safekeeping and they are doing these things. Where are the Employers of these two? Why aren't they monitoring their employee's conduct? A big time lawsuit a comin!
If my experience is any indicator, I would guess that their union would not allow such monitoring.
A nearby labor union wouldn't let a mine fire a union employee for smoking pot during work hours in a potentially explosive methane environment. I have no doubt in my mind that the union could not care less about anyone's safety if it could jeopardize a member's job.
Is that Gay speak for something I don't want to know about??? Honestly why else is a grown man trying to entice a young male with this???
People can sure be pretty pathetic.
How is it the the union “wouldn’t let” the mining company fire someone?
I was going to mention the Union angle. Obvious that’s where the problem is - Work rules, etc.
Too bad the Union will not be named as a Defendant in the lawsuit that is coming. The Employer and the victims are left to sort through the debris.
They made his continued employment a central issue in contract negotiations shortly after the incident. He kept his job.
Then management is foolish, dangerous, and weak.
Hey, Sanchez had a lot more “flava” than that boring old Sully Sullenberger.....we need people like Sanchez for his vibrance, and the alternative thinking people like him bring to the job.
/s
Yeah, yeah. It's all management's fault. That's the ticket!
More than a little bizarre/unsettling isn’t it. Got to be a Pedophile/Molester thing going on although in this case he was talking about actually driving a real train.
Diversity is a good thing, right? /sarc
Yeah, it's a real trainwreck in the office.
I’m sure this guy had a medical marijuana card.. Mr Sanchez... wonderful... next we will learn he was a hired due to the need to have the correct blend of jelly beans..
If this man was texting porn with his gay lover it's NOT a story.
The MSM has passes... ( but not for us)
Probably so. I'd guess he drew up the card with a Sharpie that very morning.
chicken hawk bump for later.........
The conductor of the Metrolink train and three other witnesses state that the light WAS NOT red when the train left the station. They say it was green. The NTSB is sticking to their claim, but I have reservations about the validity of the NTSB Claims.
LA Times article: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-metrolink5-2008dec05,0,3449298.story?track=rss
This isn't theory, you're responsible for your decisions and your agreements.
YES I AM blaming management. When there's an explosion in the mine and someone wants to know what happened, your answer will be shown for what it is, scapegoating, shirking responsibility, and endangering lives.
If that's not clear enough, go ahead and make your little snide remark about how management is being victimized.
Even if that light was not red, the previous one was yellow, which means he should have treated the light as red, and certainly not been traveling at 45 miles an hour. There are very particular rules for railroads that are supposed to leave layers of safety... it should not have been possible for the light to be green based on the position of the switch that was run over.
There are thousands of miles of track where the same system is used. The reason why we don’t have train crashes every day is that the system works if you’re not on drugs or texting.
Whether or not the UP conductor had marijuana in his system is completely irrelevant as the UP train was where it was supposed to be, stopped, and the conductor does not drive the train anyway. It’s not like the UP train could have done anything to avoid the incident.
Basically this incident means that there’s one company that is about to make a boatload of money rolling out positive train control systems - and they’re going to earn it, the problem is not trivial.
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