Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Glen
SEATTLE TRAIN CRASH IN DUPONT WASHINGTON
My opinion is that there should be much better warning for such a drastic reduction in the quality of the track ahead such as signage or a signal.
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You're right, of course. One of the first things they taught me as a noob to the railway is that.. "If it can go wrong, it will one day".
We've had some awful derailments at speed restrictions here in Blighty - most notably Morpeth in 1969 (link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_accidents_at_Morpeth )
After many years of faffing about, we arrived at a situation where whenever the Permissable speed reduces by more than a third (eg from 90mph to 50mph) there is an AWS warning magnet in the four foot and an upside down reflective triangle showing the new speed. These things are low tech, low cost and lifesavers. It's easy enough to know where you are on a Summer's day, but in freezing fog at night you can't see diddly out of the window sometimes, so can temporarily misjudge your location, especially if you're dealing with other distractions on the train.
And since TPWS (link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_...Warning_System ) was introduced, we have Overspeed sensors installed as well, which will initiate the emergency brake if the train passes over them above the trip speed.
Which is great. But I'm not being smug about this. There are hundreds of ways a driver/engineer can mess up, because that's part of being human. There, but for the grace of God, go all of us.
Best wishes, BW