Metrolink Crash in Chatsworth, CA - 9/12/08

Nobody is claiming to be angels or saying they never do anything stupid. But this has nothing to do with prison guards either. From all indications, the person solely to blame is the engineer. Yes, he died and that's part of the larger tragedy. But it seems quite apparent in this case that the engineer made poor choices in his work habits and 25 people died because of that. Don't give me any baloney about spreading the blame to co-workers or employers. It's a matter of personal responsibility and this guy is solely and personally responsible for the results.

BR&P wrote:Nobody is claiming to be angels or saying they never do anything stupid. But this has nothing to do with prison guards either. From all indications, the person solely to blame is the engineer. Yes, he died and that's part of the larger tragedy. But it seems quite apparent in this case that the engineer made poor choices in his work habits and 25 people died because of that. Don't give me any baloney about spreading the blame to co-workers or employers. It's a matter of personal responsibility and this guy is solely and personally responsible for the results.

It is personal responsibility, but there is also an institutional responsibility. If you tell me that an engineer is doing to text fifty messages (in/out) on duty in one day would happen in an organization that teaches and enforces and strong "safety first" program I am going to ask you what you are smoking. It would never happen. The fault goes beyond this one guy who screwed-up.

you guys both have legitimate points, now stop arguing......

concordgirl wrote:you guys both have legitimate points, now stop arguing......

KIndly leave us men our pissing contests, we would be lost with out them.

Concordgirl, in my opinion the single best thing that could come out of this is for all commuter railroads that don't already have it to install some form of Automatic Speed Control. And it doesn't have to be space age stuff either. Various technologies have been around for 50 years, and where it exists there have been few if any major collisions, though there have been minor ones. As Jt points out above, human error will always be with us, so we need to guard against it using the available systems. Yes, they are very expensive, but railroads and the governments that fund them need to weigh that expense against the cost (financial and otherwise) of accidents like the Metrolink (and MBTA Green Line trolley) wrecks. My guess is all the lawsuits that will be filed against Metrolink will probably equal or exceed the cost of an automatic speed control system.

Head-end View wrote:Concordgirl, in my opinion the single best thing that could come out of this is for all commuter railroads that don't already have it to install some form of Automatic Speed Control. And it doesn't have to be space age stuff either. Various technologies have been around for 50 years, and where it exists there have been few if any major collisions, though there have been minor ones. As Jt points out above, human error will always be with us, so we need to guard against it using the available systems. Yes, they are very expensive, but railroads and the governments that fund them need to weigh that expense against the cost (financial and otherwise) of accidents like the Metrolink (and MBTA Green Line trolley) wrecks. My guess is all the lawsuits that will be filed against Metrolink will probably equal or exceed the cost of an automatic speed control system.

exactly.

i don't think there will be hell in the RR industry if the investigation blames the engineer entirely, because then everyone will say "oh it was the engineer's fault" and wipe their hands clean and pretend like nothing needs to change. but things DO need to change. as JT said, culture plays a role. positive train control plays a role as well. people brought up the chase, md crash – the problem there wasn't that train control wasn't working, it was that one of the locomotives did not have any positive train control. oh, and the dudes were smoking marijuana.

again, i can't believe that the country which is home to silicon valley and the birthplace of so much technology has a railroad system whose technology is at least 50 years old. that is absolutely pathetic.

I'm acknowledging the benefits of PTC which this tragedy may hasten. And don't worry Concordgirl, I'm not challenging icgsteve to pistols at 20 paces.

I think his reply actually bolsters my opinion that it does rest solely with the engineer.

If you tell me that an engineer is doing to text fifty messages (in/out) on duty in one day would happen in an organization that teaches and enforces and strong "safety first" program I am going to ask you what you are smoking.

The company already had a prohibition against what the guy was doing, they presumably did operational testing to enforce the rules, and "teach and enforces a strong 'Safety First' program..."

A company or organization can only do so much. They can (and do) make rules prohibiting a given act or behavior. They can check and test to see if the rules are being followed in random situations. They can discipline or discharge those who fail to follow the rules. But ultimately the company - no matter how good and how strict their rules program is - cannot protect against an individual who chooses to deliberately break the rule.

This incident can certainly prompt Metrolink to take stock - "DID we make the policy clear enough? DID we do enough enforcement? DID we have any previous reports from other employees that this was going on?" But the bottom line is the responsibility for the incident rests entirely on the individual who repeatedly broke an existing rule.

Jtgshu wrote: It wasn't a suicide (IMO), but its not like he went out and purposely caused this wreck and killed these folks along with himself.

He made a mistake, albeit a tragic one, but we are all humans, and we all make mistakes, even you "angels" here.

Like I said earlier in this thread, there are plenty of other "legal" distractions to the engineer that could have caused the same result. Lets not get carried away here.

We are no angels here, but there is a HUGE difference in the "little mistakes" you mention and reckless actions when you are responsible for hundreds of lives. If it is your job to be aware and able to react then it is your fault if you make the decision to do anything that prevents you from preforming your job. I'm not saying 100% of the blame falls on the engineer but I think the bulk of it does.

BR&P wrote: From all indications, the person solely to blame is the engineer. Yes, he died and that's part of the larger tragedy.

I don't think so. Assuming that the reports of these multiple outrageous texts to be accurate (and from all indications, it would appear as such), I would have felt a profound sense of injustice had this guy lived - much the same (worse) than when in a two auto collision, a whole family dies in one car and the other car which was at fault has a drunk driver who climbs out of the wreck with nothing but minor scratches.
I am a supporter of ATC and all other safety measures, but to claim that anyone else but this bufoon, who thought that texting young boys was more important than safeguarding hundreds of his passengers was at fault, is ludicrous. Sanchez had a duty to get those passengers safely to their destinations utilizing all his abilities to do so. It would appear that he failed not only miserably but viciously and recklessly as well.

Were his actions negligent and irresponsible? Sure. Would I be p***** if any of our guys on my commuter rail had something like that happen? Hell yeah, it'd terrify me. But......

Go look at the last pic of Sanchez there on page 10 of the earlier report PDF that Otto gave the link to. Sanchez has already received his own punishment. What do you wanna do, dig the guy up so you can yell at him some more?

concordgirl wrote:Were his actions negligent and irresponsible? Sure. Would I be p***** if any of our guys on my commuter rail had something like that happen? Hell yeah, it'd terrify me. But......

Go look at the last pic of Sanchez there on page 10 of the earlier report PDF that Otto gave the link to. Sanchez has already received his own punishment. What do you wanna do, dig the guy up so you can yell at him some more?

No, that's not what I want to do. What I do want to do is to get as much education out of this horrific incident as is possible. By downplaying (or eliminating) Sanchez as a suspected criminal in this situation is to water down this message as relates to any other so-called professional whom you and I rely on to live our lives as safely as possible. It's one thing to casually suggest reverance for Sanchez for whatever reason from 3000 miles away, not having any personal involvement except a concern for perhaps insulting railway workers. You might have another perception if you had to identify a mangled loved one at the morgue, knowing that the cause was chit-chat.

Paul, no one is suggesting letting this guy off the hook; what he did was wrong, and if he had survived, undoubtedly he'd have been punished. But I just think that it pays to keep a cool head abt these things. Trying to shed more light on the reality of texting in the workplace, and warn people abt the potential dangers, would accomplish more. My suggestion? Put a picture of this wreck on a poster that says, "TEXTING KILLS." And put the poster up as a reminder.

WSH wrote:

Jtgshu wrote: It wasn't a suicide (IMO), but its not like he went out and purposely caused this wreck and killed these folks along with himself.

He made a mistake, albeit a tragic one, but we are all humans, and we all make mistakes, even you "angels" here.

Like I said earlier in this thread, there are plenty of other "legal" distractions to the engineer that could have caused the same result. Lets not get carried away here.

We are no angels here, but there is a HUGE difference in the "little mistakes" you mention and reckless actions when you are responsible for hundreds of lives. If it is your job to be aware and able to react then it is your fault if you make the decision to do anything that prevents you from preforming your job. I'm not saying 100% of the blame falls on the engineer but I think the bulk of it does.

My point is the following - if he was "legally distracted" because his paperwork fell on the floor, or there was an alarm going off on the loco and he was trying to figure out what it was, or if he was talking on the radio, or looking down at his time table or whatever, each of those instances, you have to take your eyes off the railroad ahead of you, and focus on something else. Of course, you shouldn't be looking at your paperwork coming up to a stop signal and things like that, but sometimes things just don't happen the way you want or intend them to.

Should he have been texting? Absolutely not. Was it his fault (partially at least) that the train crashed? Absolutley.

BUT if this exact same accident happened because as we was leaving his station, and his coffee split on his lap or his paperwork fell to the floor, or a bee flew in the cab or whatever at the time he was leaving the station and went by the signal, what would the gov't be pushing for then?

No drinking coffee while running? No talking on the radio while running? Thats what my point is.

Remember a tragic accident is very rarely the result of just one mistake. its usually a series of little mistakes that end up building upon each other. and if one simple thing was different, the whole thing wouldn't have happened. Texting played a role in the crash, absolutely, but there were many other things that went wrong too.

You can't prevent every possible accident. Accidents (or maybe incidents would be a better word) will happen, in all different ways, there is an element of risk that is assumed every time you step out the door. Will PTS stop all accidents? Unfortunately, no - will it help, sure - but unfortunately there will continue to be accidents and crashes from now until eternity. All we can do is try to focus on the contributing factors and try to address them (shutting off cell phones in cabs - okay fine) instead of trying to spend billions of dollars on a system that isn't going to have a 100 percent success rate and doing it because "its the right thing to do". It will be safer, of course, but accidents can and will happen with PTS installed everywhere - on every inch of RR. Thats something that isn't being said.

The job of the gov't (and the railroads of course) should be to enforce existing rules and come up with meaningful regulation and have a through discussion on things with labor (the ones who run the trains, not the management types who only tell what they want people to know), not knee jerk, feel good legislation that turns more into a publicity stunt for the politicians who all of a sudden are industry experts to pat themselves on the back than to actually address the REAL problems.

concordgirl wrote: But I just think that it pays to keep a cool head abt these things.

Well, you know C-girl - maybe what is needed is not to keep a cool head, but instead be infuriated by the fact that you, I, or one of ours, can be turned into hamburg by the selfish wants of one individual who has no place in having that kind of control over our lives.

I would actually disagree with that. To prevent a future tragedy, we don't ALL need to get angry, we need to think clearly, and with a sense of purpose. Besides, you seem outraged enough to make up for the rest of us

I'm teasing a little, but I do agree with you that his actions were selfish. Where I disagree is, to me that is not the focal point of the discussion. It's time to pick up the pieces and ask ourselves, Where did things go so wrong, that this one guy believed he could effectively do his job and send 22 texts at the same time?

And I also think it would be unfair to cast aspersions on the hundreds of engineers who do behave responsibly, and know when to stay focused. We don't know how widespread this problem is. It may be that this one guy just had very poor judgment. Some education or PR on the issue would still be a good, proactive idea, but I think the average engineer is not going to put people at risk in the way that this one guy did. Now if you wanna disagree w me about that, go ahead, that is just one person's opinion. I obviously am not working in that field so I have no way of knowing for sure, other than anecdotal evidence.