If I were a betting man, I'd say the odds are good that we are dealing with an engineer who was either sleeping or distracted.
For all the legitimate complaints you hear about excessive government regulation in general, the fact is that the U.S. railroad industry is very heavily regulated in a way that makes an investigation into this type of incident relatively simple. I'm sure the investigators knew within two hours of arriving on the scene that the engineer -- for one reason or another -- was the cause of this incident.
I think you're right. Time will tell. Side question: How many engineers are normally in the cab? Is it just one?
And do any other members of the train crew have easy access to the cab?
One can't assume a suicidal person would be thinking with calm logic. I can easily see anyone panicking just before the final moment and desperately trying to undo their act.
All they have to do is download the black box in the engine. It will tell them everything they need to know.
Mark Levin had several train engineers call in and they all agreed hitting the full emergency brakes was the worst thing to do. The engine begins braking before the front cars before the rear cars so they all take turns slamming into the braking car in front of them, driving each other off the rails. They thought he did that to make sure there was a derail.
Answer:
Chris Matthews Blames Lack of ‘Straight Lines’ for Train Crash
By Ken Shepherd | May 13, 2015 | 8:50 PM EDT
In two separate segments on his May 13 Hardball program, MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews blamed “turns” on the Amtrak passenger rail route for Tuesday night’s train crash.
Matthews lamented that Amtrak rights-of-way must respect private property and that it’s so much more difficult in the United States than say China for the government to muscle its way into providing as straight a shot as possible for passenger rail lines. Here’s the relevant transcript:
PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!
Thanks Chris!!
Hard to imagine that he could be sleeping since they just pulled out of 30'th street station minutes earlier and there were lots of signals and switches between 30th street and the crash site. Plus, it wasn't horribly late in the night and he's young.