STrRedWolf wrote:
No, and I bet the rules & procedures did not account for radio comms cutting out in the middle of the move. I bet the operator was screaming his head off to stop the damn train.
Does anybody have access to the rulebook which would apply here? I can only speak on how it's done on "regular" railroads rather than transit. On those lines, the rules absolutely DO account for loss of communication during the move. I went through this above but will lay it out again as you may have missed it.
1. The supervisor and the operator (and any other employees affected) should have had a "job briefing" discussing what they would do and how it would be done.
2. With the supervisor at the controls and the operator in the lead car they would perform a radio check, to be sure they had communication both ways.
3. I don't know how transit guys in the tunnels calculate distance. Do they count carlengths, support poles, lights, whatever? Let's say there are lights on the walls at regular intervals. The operator can see 6 lights and it's all clear so he tells the spvr to shove 6 lights.
4. While shoving, if the spvr does not hear more info - if the communication fails - he is to stop within THREE lights -
half the distance which was known to be safe. In most cases, in about 3 lights the op would say something like "Still clear for 6 lights" so the spvr could continue the shove another THREE lights and so on.
If he doesn't hear more, he STOPS.
5. The "Gothamist" report quoted (which is what I'm basing my discussion on) states the train passed 3 signals designed to stop trains when they didn't have clearance. I presume this means the automatic trips - but do each of those have a visual aspect as well - a red light for example? How far apart are they? From that article, it suggests the supervisor just kept shoving blindly despite having no communication from the op, for a considerable distance. If that is the case, there's your cause.
Any trip-arms would of thrown on track M instead of track 4 while the disabled section of the train was in the interlock.
You'll have to translate that for this above-ground guy. I've been to NYC a few times, have ridden the subway as a passenger but really am not familiar with how the systems work.
As for shutting down traffic - hey, no doubt that would have avoided the incident. When you are in your car, do you stop at each green light, in case somebody runs through the red? Obviously your car doesn't have 200 people on board but at what point do you rely on people to do their job right? At what point do you say "What if...." and shut down additional operations? How rare is a disabled train? My guess is it happens frequently. Do they shut everything down every time?
Like I said it's a different type of action and totally foreign to me. I'm willing to let others decide what degree of redundant precaution should be taken. But it seems - again basing my opinion on what we read - there was some terribly sloppy "railroading" in the operation of the disabled train which caused the collision.
, they have their "way" of influencing how much an accused's livelihood will be affected?
