Cameras To Be Installed On Trains

From the NY Daily News:

The Federal Railroad Administration will require inward- and outward-facing cameras in all train cars throughout the country, two lawmakers said Sunday.
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) and Richard Blumenthal (D.-Conn.) pushed for the cameras after a Metro-North train derailed Dec. 1 near Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, killing four people.

I don't like the idea. It would not have prevented the Spuyten Duyvil crash, and will only serve to lower moral among train crews. I do hope that the rail unions can establish strong ground rules as to how the cameras can be used for disciplinary action.

Bill

Article link: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cam ... -1.1577436

Moral among train crews is not a public priority. Cameras would probably not prevented the SD crash, but they would have documented what caused it, which is key to preventing a repeat. We still don't know what really happened.

Chuckie and Bloomey are experts at turning these kinds of situations into "concerned statesmen" votes and the papers will milk the crusade for them. MNCR has chosen over the past few years not to invest in marketing themselves to the public via Open Houses, Fan Trips, etc. and even chooses to leave their wrecked trains in easy public view to remind people every day of recent events. So now it's the perfect issue prior to 2014 elections, and look for more politicians to pigpile in soon, particularly those on the left side of the isle since that's where the good senators have planted the flag.

This might become an FRA mandate - the unions won't get much of a say as to how they get used. If they had been smart, they would have proposed this themselves. Now instead it's being framed in terms of "the evil corporate railroad vs. the public", with the senators in the role of peoples' champions. We know how that will go - the way that gun laws went after Sandy Hook, even though none of those new laws would have prevented the tragedy.

currently camera's installed do not show engineer, but just his hands and control stand.
this is from what I have seen on Metrolink project and what is planned on M-7 and M-8.

I have to wonder what information could investigators gather from watching the engineer's hands? And how would this technology have made the outcome of the DV incident different? We know from the download of the event record what the engineer did, or didn't do.

Another Sunday Chucky camera opportunity. He loves to attach himself to any event that he can get publicity for. MN Crash, RR oil tanke derailments, RR haz mat shipping etc. I'm surprised he hasnt chimed in on the airline that landed at the wrong airoport!!! Give us a break!!!!

Why have crews got low morals?

BobLI wrote:Another Sunday Chucky camera opportunity.

Awesome. I expect nothing but grandstanding from Chuck "which way to the cameras?" Schumer. (sarcasm)

Schumer is a grandstanding politician. Though I've never been an engineer I would be against cameras in the cab filming the train operators. That's just too much; a form of harassment. Even though there have been incidents of engineers doing improper things (cell-phones, newspapers) while operating trains, I still think cameras would be going too far. I hope the engineers' unions will vehemently oppose this idea.

However, I do favor outward facing cameras filming the right-of-way. Those will help document incidents of trespassing, grade-crossing incursions, signal aspects, etc. Like dashboard cameras in police cars. A good idea.

It would have saved a lot of time on the VIA fatal derailment if the issue of the signal aspects could have been scrubbed early in the process rather than investigators having to conduct verifications. I've seen forward facing images used in train-vehicle level crossing collision investigations by the Rail Accident Investigation Unit in Ireland to bring clarity to issues of visibility at unsignalled crossings etc. In cab audio would have also resolved the issue of whether any of the three people in that VIA cab audibly noted the signal. It is also in line with practices in aviation. In cab video goes beyond that and I'm not sold on what it brings compared to what it takes away in morale.

even with camera's , event recorders, Control point recorders, radio recorders, eye witnesses etc everything still has to be verified and still nothing can be ruled out.
With the Bridgeport wrech they had camera images from Amtrak train, confirming the broken joint, still investigation continuous..

There should be a camera on Chuckie Schumer to watch the amount of hot air he spews and how little work he actually does. He must be Wikipedia's best customer after Michael Scott.

"However, I do favor outward facing cameras filming the right-of-way. Those will help document incidents of trespassing, grade-crossing incursions, signal aspects, etc. Like dashboard cameras in police cars. A good idea."

H-E: I agree with you here - these cameras could help a railroad faced with these type of incidents...but for interior cameras I will let current and retired Engineers make their thoughts known on that accord...MACTRAXX

As engineers we really have no say in matter, its their trains.
How many other professions are on camera ??
police officers - firefighters - cashiers - bank tellers - toll takers - porters - restaurant workers - even riding public - etc - etc.

all Unions can do, is negotiate rules on use of these images and penalties for abuse, not only by those who are observed, but also for abuse by company like non- incident investigations, or releases to youtube.

Right Dutch, your union absolutely needs to negotiate some reasonable rules re: how the in-cab cameras will be used, etc.

As far as all those other professions you mentioned are concerned, I can tell you that we do not generally have cameras in the cabs of fire trucks, though some firefighters in some places do wear helmet mounted cameras to film actual firefighting.

I will say it again as an example of the special interest going on here. Why aren't Comrade Cuomo and Up Chuck Schumer demanding cameras to be installed in airliner cockpits? Just goes to show you the true meaning behind their camera wet dream.