An interesting article; I agree with the railroads.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75547.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75547.html
Ignore the Title, but do Read the article and the comments!
- Thread starter Euphod
- Start date
Very interesting. From an overseas angle, I wonder what the difference between vehicle deaths and railroad deaths is in the US.
I think the only reason various levels of Government push for 'safety' on public transport, at huge costs to the industry and the paying public, is vote buying and the fear of massive compensation payouts.
Relatively very little money or government hard lining is directed towards private transport safety in comparison.
The human factor will always be the weakest link, regardless of the level of "fail-safe" in transport design.
Bob (CRO)
I think the only reason various levels of Government push for 'safety' on public transport, at huge costs to the industry and the paying public, is vote buying and the fear of massive compensation payouts.
Relatively very little money or government hard lining is directed towards private transport safety in comparison.
The human factor will always be the weakest link, regardless of the level of "fail-safe" in transport design.
Bob (CRO)
Politicians making grand pronouncements about public safety but don't know anything about how it really works. Spend lots of other people's money and perhaps something good will result, hopefully before the next election. Then if it works they'll take all the credit, if it fails, it's someone else's fault.
The problem with a fail-safe is that it will fail at some point and then the complacency that has set in will result in really serious problems. Better to have a layered approach with multiple independent systems all working to the same end.
And then there are some Unions who don't care who gets hurt as long as their privileges are protected. Two warnings and nothing happened. I wonder if they prevented that engineer from being disciplined, transferred or at least sent for some retraining.
The problem with a fail-safe is that it will fail at some point and then the complacency that has set in will result in really serious problems. Better to have a layered approach with multiple independent systems all working to the same end.
And then there are some Unions who don't care who gets hurt as long as their privileges are protected. Two warnings and nothing happened. I wonder if they prevented that engineer from being disciplined, transferred or at least sent for some retraining.
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You will continue to see a lot of this especially after Nov. The current government wishes control over every aspect of our lives and uses scare tactics to try to override common sense.PTC is a good idea for sure but not a fail-safe prevention of railroad accidents and may actually cause a slowdown in velocity.
Slapping fines for operating coal mines and power plants has already put thousands of workers on unemployment compensation.
Mountaintop mining offers a chance to develop remote areas for ease of travel and rural development, with rail access no less.
More regulation just creates another method to steel our money in taxes and achieve absolute control over everything and increase the government labor pool.
Funny coincidence here in New South Wales, Australia, the transport regulation guys are suggesting a relaxing of the 12hour maximum shift rule for train drivers. They are advocating, probably
after a lot of pressure from the railway authorities, to allow the Operating authority to decide the maximum work times and minimum rest periods. Obviously this has been brought on by the almost
constant need to "reduce costs". Safety is just a political issue - money v lives varies depending on the current political status at the time.
Bob (CRO)
after a lot of pressure from the railway authorities, to allow the Operating authority to decide the maximum work times and minimum rest periods. Obviously this has been brought on by the almost
constant need to "reduce costs". Safety is just a political issue - money v lives varies depending on the current political status at the time.
Bob (CRO)
Hi Everybody.
There would seem to be two issues to be debated in this thread, the first being the whether there is any need for safety legislation in the rail industry and the second being who should pay for the legislation to be implemented if proven it is needed.
The safety infrastructure that is referred to by Ed would seem to be similar to the APT (automatic train protection) that has now been installed on British Railways. The need for this system was clearly demonstrated following two rail accidents in the 1990s. The first was the Ladbroke Grove rail disaster which occurred in 1997, in which seven people died and 139 others were injured many of them receiving horrendous burns following a fire in several carriages after two HSTs collided on the outskirts of London.
The second rail accident was the Paddington rail disaster in which eight people died and 160 others were injured in 1999 when a HST and a local commuter train collided passing through the complicated switches just outside Paddington station again in London.
Both accidents were caused by train drivers (engineers) misreading or not reacting properly to the signals before them. Automatic train protection had long been in existence before both accidents but the train operators and the rail maintenance company had lobbied the British government not to pass legislation enforcing the installation of the system on grounds of cost. The British government decided on a cheaper system which although it gave extra warning to drivers on the settings of the signals they were approaching still left the actual control of the train to the driver.
Following both the above accidents the government passed legislation which forced the train companies to install the APT system throughout the network. Since the legislation there has not been a single accident involving drivers not reacting appropriately to signals on mainlines as the system automatically stops the train if the driver does not act to do so. With British HST trains now travelling into large cities at speeds of over 120 mph I do not think many rail passengers or people living near to the heavily used rail network would not think the above system was not needed
As for who should pay for the installation of such very expensive systems, well in Britain as far as the actual rail track is concerned it has come out of the subsidy that the British government pays to the rail operators and that is provided by the taxpayer. Whether taxpayers who never use the rail system should be subsidising those that do is open to debate I feel that they should not. However, many would argue that ticket prices on British Railways are already too high and getting to the stage where many simply cannot afford to travel by rail. It can further be argued that when the subsidies are withdrawn (as it is planned to be) the railways will become the preserve of the rich and powerful as the only people who will be able to afford the high fares.
Bill
posted from the 1430 Plymouth to Bristol Temple Meads HST service
There would seem to be two issues to be debated in this thread, the first being the whether there is any need for safety legislation in the rail industry and the second being who should pay for the legislation to be implemented if proven it is needed.
The safety infrastructure that is referred to by Ed would seem to be similar to the APT (automatic train protection) that has now been installed on British Railways. The need for this system was clearly demonstrated following two rail accidents in the 1990s. The first was the Ladbroke Grove rail disaster which occurred in 1997, in which seven people died and 139 others were injured many of them receiving horrendous burns following a fire in several carriages after two HSTs collided on the outskirts of London.
The second rail accident was the Paddington rail disaster in which eight people died and 160 others were injured in 1999 when a HST and a local commuter train collided passing through the complicated switches just outside Paddington station again in London.
Both accidents were caused by train drivers (engineers) misreading or not reacting properly to the signals before them. Automatic train protection had long been in existence before both accidents but the train operators and the rail maintenance company had lobbied the British government not to pass legislation enforcing the installation of the system on grounds of cost. The British government decided on a cheaper system which although it gave extra warning to drivers on the settings of the signals they were approaching still left the actual control of the train to the driver.
Following both the above accidents the government passed legislation which forced the train companies to install the APT system throughout the network. Since the legislation there has not been a single accident involving drivers not reacting appropriately to signals on mainlines as the system automatically stops the train if the driver does not act to do so. With British HST trains now travelling into large cities at speeds of over 120 mph I do not think many rail passengers or people living near to the heavily used rail network would not think the above system was not needed
As for who should pay for the installation of such very expensive systems, well in Britain as far as the actual rail track is concerned it has come out of the subsidy that the British government pays to the rail operators and that is provided by the taxpayer. Whether taxpayers who never use the rail system should be subsidising those that do is open to debate I feel that they should not. However, many would argue that ticket prices on British Railways are already too high and getting to the stage where many simply cannot afford to travel by rail. It can further be argued that when the subsidies are withdrawn (as it is planned to be) the railways will become the preserve of the rich and powerful as the only people who will be able to afford the high fares.
Bill
posted from the 1430 Plymouth to Bristol Temple Meads HST service
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Honestly, I tend to agree with the railroads: The technology isn't there (British Rail had AWS starting in the 50's/60's, and Germany has had a similar system for several decades, but they're both on NATIONAL systems, and didn't need to communicate between numerous different railroad companies) and honestly, it's a magical miracle cure for railway safety. That said, however, if we want to go with High-Speed Rail (or just speed up our existing Amtrak trains) we need to have some sort of PTC in place, because at 90-110mph human response time to any problem is dramatically shorter; not so much that the human is slowing down, but that they have less time to act on any danger they see.