Well, in the recent past, we have the tragic train derailment/explosion in Canada, the airline crash in San Francisco, and now passenger train leaps off the rails in France.
In each case, it is the engineer/pilot who is blamed for the mishap.
Why do these companies keep hiring these idiots? Don’t they know any better? Cant they find better people?
C’mon, blaming the operator is a cop out. It is the easy way out. Lets find the real reason for the mishap, this time.
I blame Rooster
Find the real culprits?
We have a saying in OZ. There are two chances of that happening, Buckleys and Nunn!!
Bart Salmons said:
I blame Rooster
I blame him, too. Have you seen the way he looks lately?
(http://www.largescalecentral.com/public/user/184b1/184b1_6e4f.jpg)
Obviously, a nefarious character.
Tony Walsham said:
Buckleys and Nunn!!
Isn’t Bart an Alumni of that college?
You forget we come from a society that praises stupidity.
Shawn Viggiano said:
You forget we come from a society that praises stupidity.
Nah…people are just lazy. They put in more effort avoiding work than they would doing the work 
A society of slackers…
Ralph
Train left parked with the loco turned off & hand brakes not set?
4 pilots including a check pilot and not one looking out the windshield and seeing the VASI lights were all red telling anyone looking that the aircraft was too low? The pilot had 10,000 total hours & 100 landings in type. Perhaps the problem was too much experience and too many qualifications. The check pilot possibly assumed he did not need to be prepared for the PIC to do something stupid. Perhaps the last 1,000 hours included 90%+ auto pilot & automatic landing systems time. They seem to have been well below the power curve.
It’s easy to blame the engineer and pilot (sometimes correctly - like not looking outside) but sometimes there are reasons (ie fatigue) that affect judgement. Sometimes it is equipment failure. Why did the tank cars separate & why did that not activate the brakes?
The cost of the accidents will probably be enough to generate solutions for the future. We only get traffic lights when enough people die.
Jerry
I wish I had bought the t-shirt that said:
STUPIDITY SHOULD BE PAINFUL
BTW It’s not illegal to be stupid. You have to get tested and a Permit to drive a car, but not to breed more stupid folks into the gene pool. Ignorance is OK, Stupid is not.
Dave Taylor said:
BTW It’s not illegal to be stupid. You have to get tested and a Permit to drive a car, but not to breed more stupid folks into the gene pool. Ignorance is OK, Stupid is not.
I would like to comment but I cannot cause this is a train modeling forum and my remarks would involve government and free handouts that only fuel what you said. I will say that I did renew my permit to carry “concealed feelings” a few months back but the paper work was incredible so I’m thinking I might just carry them openly in the near future.
The train derailment in France has been found to have been caused by equipment failure and the operator has received a commendation for his actions in preventing further tragedy and damage… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/track-fault-blamed-for-french-derailment/story-e6frg6so-1226679095138
“Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said human error was not to blame for the accident, praising the train’s driver who he said “had absolutely extraordinary reflexes by sending the alert immediately”, preventing a collision with an oncoming train.”
Lou Luczu said:
I wish I had bought the t-shirt that said:
STUPIDITY SHOULD BE PAINFUL
It is, and often very humerous, just read Failblog
Phil Creer said:
The train derailment in France has been found to have been caused by equipment failure and the operator has received a commendation for his actions in preventing further tragedy and damage… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/track-fault-blamed-for-french-derailment/story-e6frg6so-1226679095138
“Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said human error was not to blame for the accident, praising the train’s driver who he said “had absolutely extraordinary reflexes by sending the alert immediately”, preventing a collision with an oncoming train.”
Hi Phil - I read that link and I’m wondering if that can be an ‘official’ cause so early in the investigation. It might just be a declaration by the minister of the state run railway system.
Paraphrasing from the article; they claim a joint bar came loose and became lodged in a switch preventing the points from closing. With what little information I have it seems to me that the joint bar could have easily been torn loose and ended up wedged in the points as a result of the derailment.
David Russell said:
Dave Taylor said:
BTW It’s not illegal to be stupid. You have to get tested and a Permit to drive a car, but not to breed more stupid folks into the gene pool. Ignorance is OK, Stupid is not.
I would like to comment but I cannot cause this is a train modeling forum and my remarks would involve government and free handouts that only fuel what you said. I will say that I did renew my permit to carry “concealed feelings” a few months back but the paper work was incredible so I’m thinking I might just carry them openly in the near future.
Haha and I bet its loaded with a lot of sh_ _
Jon Radder said:
Phil Creer said:
The train derailment in France has been found to have been caused by equipment failure and the operator has received a commendation for his actions in preventing further tragedy and damage… http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/track-fault-blamed-for-french-derailment/story-e6frg6so-1226679095138
“Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said human error was not to blame for the accident, praising the train’s driver who he said “had absolutely extraordinary reflexes by sending the alert immediately”, preventing a collision with an oncoming train.”
Hi Phil - I read that link and I’m wondering if that can be an ‘official’ cause so early in the investigation. It might just be a declaration by the minister of the state run railway system.
Paraphrasing from the article; they claim a joint bar came loose and became lodged in a switch preventing the points from closing. With what little information I have it seems to me that the joint bar could have easily been torn loose and ended up wedged in the points as a result of the derailment.
Actually, at least here in the colonies, a majority of road power had forward facing cameras that have high enough resolution that you could see if there were something between the point rail and the stock rail. Of course, at least in CTC territory, an improperly lined switch would have turned signals red, thus preventing this accident. And, accident investigators have actually in some cases been able to identify the first axle that went over the rail anomoly and determine the cause by marks left on the steel tread of the whee.
The only “electric” brakes that I know of on a train are the electric over air systems, but they still depend upon the air to do the physical work of setting the brakes. If they had a dead engine, then maybe the air just bled off. From what I read, this was a one man crew. Kind of makes you wonder if a second person was on the crew the correct securement tests might have been conducted, thereby preventing the tragedy.
With the crash in S.F. no one was looking out the window because they were all texting on their phones!
William Whitlow said:
Of course, at least in CTC territory, an improperly lined switch would have turned signals red, thus preventing this accident.
The only “electric” brakes that I know of on a train are the electric over air systems, but they still depend upon the air to do the physical work of setting the brakes. If they had a dead engine, then maybe the air just bled off. From what I read, this was a one man crew. Kind of makes you wonder if a second person was on the crew the correct securement tests might have been conducted, thereby preventing the tragedy.
CTC doesn’t stop a train, or prevent one from moving. All CTC does is give both authority to occupy the main train, and provide correct train spacing. Now with PTC (Positive Train Control) a restrictive signal would slow and stop a train down if the engineer wasn’t responding to the signals. But this accident was about a stopped and parked train. Neither CTC or PTC would have worked in this case, plus being a shortline RR, I can imagine that the track control was TWC (Track Warrant Control). TWC is just another type of ‘authority’ to occupy a main track.
ECP brakes are a new braking system that is not in wide spread use. ECP brakes allow for faster sets, and releases as an electrical signal is sent to each rail car to set/release the brakes, instead of using air to send the signals. ECP is another expensive beta technology that is being tested on a limited number of equipment.
I’m waiting for someone to blame it on LGB or Bachmann…
