Bye-bye NORAC for ex-Conrail lines?

CRail is in confusion of Metro-North and MARC were a MARC train in 1996 got into a station(Silversprings) on a Aproach and forgetting the aproach, flying headon into Amtrak train at interlocking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/lo ... switch.htm
and
http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/acciden ... /home.html

A buddy of mine who works in the signal department for CSX who is an Ex CR, Exx PC signal maintaince guy seaid something about the NORAC Rules were going out the door as well. The CSX rules would souposedley do away with Form D's and all of the paper work needed to protect MOW Crews. He predicts that it will take somebody to get killed befor they go back to norac rules. With out the form D it would be hard to prove weather permition was given to a train or mow guy to make there move.

CSXT has 'EC-1's which are there equivalent of a Form D.

The switch from norac rules to the csx operating system is going to be a very difficult process for some crafts. Our biggest loss in the engineering crafts is that there will be no foul time. Everthing must be written on the new form. It was tough to get foul time with just a sequence number,
now we have to get an out of service for minor repairs and inspections. I can feel a headache coming on already from all the chatter that will be on the radio.

The other one M&W guys have to remember is that when they take a track out of service, they have to give it back by the "expected clearing time". If the worker in charge does not clear up with the dispatcher by theat time, the dispatcher may allow a train in that track.

ONE thing that is nice, CSX adopted the Carbon copying EC-1 book, just like the Form-D's, I was told CSX didn't do this down south prior to these changes, until then, two copies had to be made individually and checked for discrepancies. Atleast they were smart enough to follow suit with that feature. Also per recent Gneral Bulletin and the new TT, we're only required to call out the CP signals on the radio, not the intermediate/distant signals, also, answering Detectors on the radio was thrown out the window which was nice too.

I disagree on the issue of answering the radio alarm detectors, I always
listened closely to trains answering the detectors on Conrail, I always
felt it was a good idea to know what and where other trains in my area
were doing.
I think the practice of answering detectors should be continued.
Noel Weaver

I agree with you noel some of them detectors can be hard to make out at times when someone else is chattering away on the radio walking over the detectors inspection report. This would also help out with the idea of makeing sure that the detector is working when a reply is given back.

This would also help out with the idea of makeing sure that the detector is working when a reply is given back

Although answering the detector is not longer required, I have not found any changes to the rules about what to do when a detector has an integrity failure, or if the detector doesn't go off after your train passes it.

so in some ways a reply would be given only if a train had a problum or if the detector fails to give a read out?

Right. The rules stated that if the train passes over the detector and no transmission is made by the detector that the train dispatcher must be notified and the train is to be stopped. The conductor is then supposed to walk the train to inspect for any dragging equipment........unless the dispatcher instucts the crew to continue. (The inspection by the crew is in case there was something dragging, and it wiped out the detector).