Posted on 12/20/2017 6:17:31 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
A conductor was in the cab with the train engineer before a deadly derailment in Washington state, a federal transportation board member said Tuesday, adding that the trains brakes were eventually engaged automatically, not by the engineer.
"Absolutely distraction is one of our most-wanted-list priorities at NTSB," National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said at a news conference Tuesday, although she added that the federal board has not determined a cause of the deadly accident outside Tacoma. Three people were killed when the Amtrak train headed from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, careened off a bridge at around 7:33 a.m. PT.
The train was speeding, traveling at 80 mph in a 30-mph stretch of track, investigators have already said.
All of the crew members on the train were injured and were hospitalized, and investigators are making arrangements to interview them, Dinh-Zarr said.
A conductor "who was getting experience and familiarizing himself with the territory" was in the cab with the engineer, she said, while the train's actual conductor was in the passenger area. Being familiar with the territory is one of the duties of the conductor, she said.
"As far as exactly what they were doing, we will be talking with them and finding that out," Dinh-Zarr said. It is standard protocol at the NTSB to look at all of the cell phone records of all the crew members after an accident, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
A local transit agency employee who was killed in the crash has been identified, but there is still no identification of the engineer or the conductor.
Total freaking negligence!
IIRC in 1958 the engineer on a speeding passenger train died of a heart attack in the cab. The entire train plunged into a river because the bridge was open. The death toll was horrific.
Ever since, or so I thought, every locomotive was equipped with a dead man’s switch on the throttle. Maintain a steady grip or the train grinds to a halt.
Now, if they find that there was canoodling in the cab at 80 mph....
“””The grab ass theory seems plausible. A female conductor.”””
Keep in mind this accident happened near ground zero of the communist/Marxist/socialist/progressive/gender bending movement.
I would give a very high priority to the conductor and engineer having gender issues. Just consider how the homosexual community would have celebrated, if this inaugural event had happened without incident.
“”Maybe she USED to be a male...:::
Or maybe he USED to be a female.....
When railroads converted from steam to diesel in the 1950’s, the unions insisted that firemen keep their jobs. This seemed absurd & was called “featherbedding”. But it did make sense to have two pairs of eyes in the cab. At least until now.
“Is everybody gay there?...................”
No, just everyone north of Ft. Lewis and west of the Cascades.
The “workers” are all government employees. Is there any doubt of their incompetence???
And yet they seem to think I’ll systems will work in an automobile
Sounds a lot like the crash in Phila a couple years back. That gay engineer never got in trouble either.
See my reply #42...
I am wondering if ANY pre-runs were done by this group. That curve is very obviously NOT an 80 MPH curve.
Even the people running the Baja 1000 do PRE RUNNING.
“This accident was another example of gross incompetence by government workers and managers.”
Exactly. The railroads ran trains just as fast and faster in the 1920’s with steam locomotives and avoided such accidents simply by having the crews maintain proper, basic operating precautions.
“The workers are all government employees. Is there any doubt of their incompetence???”
Officers commanding Navy ships are government employees. Does that mean they are all incompetent......uh, wait a sec, I’ll have to get back to you on that...
;^)
Thank you. Two of the dead were friends of mine.
yes-—
From another report: The bypass underwent testing by Sound Transit and Amtrak beginning in January and at least until July, according to documents on the Washington Department of Transportation website.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/deadly-train-derailment-silence-then-screams-081821524.html
So Amtrak has been testing the bypass route for almost one year and then on the first day of actual service they manage to run the train off the tracks and kill three people, injure many, and disrupt traffic for hundreds of thousands.
Noted.
LOL. What a pathetic state of affairs.
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