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

KarlJ wrote:

3rdrail wrote: No, as there was no intent, nor could it be inferrred that they knew that what they were doing posed a high liklihood of danger due to their ages and inexperience.

Any capable attorney would get them on the stand ask to be walked through the friendship or relationship these youths had with the engineer. And, give those kids a chance to tell how much they (think they) know about trains and they would run their mouths putting out more than enough evidence to conclude they may have known better than to distract the engineer.

Now while it is not likely the youths would be found directly liable, I'm confident they could be identified as contributing elements in the overall responsibility, as well they should be. Face it, whether we like it or not, someone is going to have to pay. And as far as the kids having to shoulder the load, well why not? Because for every time they were out there doing this crap, they had the opportunity to either take a chance and dodge the bullet, or to do the right thing. Now that the consequences have caught up to them, life doesn't need allow them to run and hide their heads when it doesn't pan out. Twenty-five dead... 135 injured...

KarlJ - this quoted comment was directed at the question of criminal prosecution. I do not feel that they are on such safe ground in a civil action, which you have suggested by using the term "liable". The bottom line is what the hell was the engineer thinking and where were his priorities during this alledged text messaging. The term "mitigating" was used in a post here. Well, in my mind, mitigating might have been his wife texting him in an emergency telling the engineer that her water just broke. Titillating rail buffs as he passed by ? I don't think so. And as far as the question of "holding judgement" on this forum - I agree that that is what a chat room is all about. It informs, educates, and is a sounding board if it operates correctly. As long as no persons who are directly involved involve themselves in subjective and/or non-professional dialog, there is no harm. And, as a railfan, I hate to say it, but perhaps it's not a bad message to be putting out there to a forum comprised of railfans, that our hobby has some boundaries and responsibilities. Assuming that this phone text information is true, this coupled with other "typical railfan complaints", such as photography issues and speaking with RR crews on the RR's walkie radio band, needs to be addressed out in the open. If we are going to be even tolerated as a group, we must police ourselves first.

Kaback, read the back pages of this thread. It's been estimated that it was less than a minute between the time the train ran the red signal and the collision. No dispatcher could interpret what was happening and take action to prevent the crash in such a short time.

I would like to end this discussion of whether a teenage railfan or ANYONE who might have been texting to the engineer while he was on duty was in some way responsible for this accident.

This is excerpted from the General Code of Operating Rules (GCOR) that Metrolink and many other railroads operate under:
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1.10 Games, Reading, or Electronic Devices
Unless permitted by the railroad, employees on duty, must not:

*Play games

* Read magazines, newspapers, or other literature not related to their duties.

or

* Use electronic devices not related to their duties
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This clearly states that if any railroaders were in fact doing so while on duty they are in violation of the rules. Doing so while under way knowing that a meet was to take place is unconscionable.

No one can shirk their own responsibilities for maintaining a safe work environment. There can be no passing the buck here, nor should there be.

Still we do not know the facts of this accident yet, we need to let the NTSB do their job.

icgsteve wrote:

jb9152 wrote:
OK, that's pretty definitive. Put that data together with Metrolink's quick admission that its engineer ran a Stop indication, and it appears that it occurred just as we've been speculating. Now the question may become whether or not the engineer of the Metrolink train was distracted by texting, or if he just simply 'spaced out' and ran past a hard Stop.

I think this whole thing is heading toward quicker implementation of PTC, and some interim steps to be mandated soon, possibly as part of a new FRA Emergency Order.

There maybe other factors at work here. The contractor has been expanding global operations rapidly, the quality of the management needs to be looked at as companies in rapid expansion often miss things. It has been reported that the company engineers that work Metrolink routinely violate FRA work hour rules. We don't know how closely Metrolink supervised the contractor. We don't know how hands on Metrolink is re safety of the operation.

I personally don't believe that commuter operators should be allowed to contract out except to Amtrak, as it used to be. We need to consider that law changes in Washington also play a part in this.

who does MetroLink contract out to? i assumed it was Amtrak employees operating their trains, if not who is it?
are they paid at the same national average as other rail employees?

Even if the Metrolink train was equipped with ATS of simular systems this accident would most likely still have occured. The Metrolink train still would have passed a signal displaying a stop indication. Even if an emergency braking application were applied when the Metrolink train passed the stop signal it still would have fouled the switch.

The UP train was only 600-700 feet out of a tunnel when it impacted the Metrolink train. The Metrolink train was perhaps 1000 feet passed the switch points.

Remember too that this accident took place of a very sharp curve with limited visibility.

ATS or simular systems might have reduced the severity of this accident, but in all likelyhood it would not have prevented it.

If the signal system was not working correctly it would not have helped at all.

It's worth noting, I believe, that blame for an MBTA accident which killled a young femaie engineer earlier this year was also cast on cell phone use immediately after the accident. The effort by employers, in any field, to exert both greater authority and higher intesnty (more physical and mental effort within the same amount of time) into the on-duty portion of their employees' lives is breeding rebellion, and taking its toll.

A very substantial portion of the overbuilt and underutilized rail industry of thirty years ago placed very few demands on the time and attention of a substantial number of employees. The actual volume of business was often a fraction of that formerly handled or projected. Clerical employees often finished their jobs quickly and spent the rest of the shift idle; block operators on lightly-trafficked lines might make less than ten moves in an eigt-hour shift. In this atmosphere, violation of any rule on "outside" reading was easily accomplished, and my forays into interlockig towers during those days occasionally found evidence of a portable TV set carefully hidden.

The present-day labor market reflects the opposite of that scenario; supermarket checkers are required to "stand at attention" outside their stations if not busy, call center workers are constantly monitored to satisfy a rigid script while simultaneously generating the expected volume of keystrokes, etc. The workplace is degenerating into a war zone.

Like a lot of "underemployed'" males in their mature years, I juggle two part-time jobs to provide some measure of insurance coverage and generate sufficient income. One of the two strictly prohibits electronic devices of any kind and uses checkpoints at the plant entrance to enforce the rule. The second is less demanding and employs a disproportionate number of students. It also bans cell use, but many employees flaunt the rule by silencing the ringer, and I myself have inadvertently carried mine inside the plant without thinking of it on a few occasions.

Anyone who has worked on a railroad, or any form of employment where a standard protocol/script, usually imposed in the name of security/consistency, is demanded, knows that "perfection" is simply not attainable every time, and that the one way to guarantee it will not be attained is to demand a perfect score. Operating railroaders, facing both a demand for perfection and unpredictable working hours, shoulder a disproportionately heavy amount of this burden.

Like the rebuilding of our infrastructure, the slow erosion of virtually any protection of basic employee rights and dignity, by which I mean the ability of individual employees, rather than collective representation, to set limits on the most flagrant and unrealistic demands of an employment structure based more and more on unnecessary personal service, continues. On Friday in Los Angeles, that pressure may have boiled over.

The number of opportunities out there for lighthouse-keeper-wannabees continues to decline.

I'm gonna wait until the facts arrive before passing judgement but if the engineer was actually texting some buff about the meet he's gonna have and then gets by the signal at said meet, well...

If indeed that's the case, all that "crashworthiness" crap goes out the window when you have a head-on with a freight going 40mph.

The bottom line is, in my 20+ years experience, most bad things happen on the RR when people get lazy or inattentive.

LIRailfan79 wrote: who does MetroLink contract out to? i assumed it was Amtrak employees operating their trains, if not who is it?
are they paid at the same national average as other rail employees?

Metrolink contracts to Veolia Transportation. Prior to 2005 Metrolink was operated by Amtrak. Out of California's 4 commter railroads only San Francisco's Caltrain is still operated by Amtrak. Both San Jose's Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) and San Diego's Coaster now use Herzog (which has a sketchy reputation).

realtype wrote:

LIRailfan79 wrote: who does MetroLink contract out to? i assumed it was Amtrak employees operating their trains, if not who is it?
are they paid at the same national average as other rail employees?

Metrolink contracts to Veolia Transportation. Prior to 2005 Metrolink was operated by Amtrak. Out of California's 4 commter railroads only San Francisco's Caltrain is still operated by Amtrak. Both San Jose's Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) and San Diego's Coaster now use Herzog (which has a sketchy reputation).

also worth noting that while this corp runs rail systems in Europe, in America they primarily run bus systems. My earlier post was not speculation in my opinion, it was pointing out that the NTSB will have lots of possible contributing causes to consider. This accident may have been caused in part by cultural problems at the contractor and at metrolink. The investigators will need to look into this.

Unfortunately like religion all ATC is not the same and RR ATC is quite different to Transit ATC. In Transit the stop command stops the train at a safe braking rate to stop just short of the Red signal. RR ATC whether it be intermittent or continuous requires certain safety actions depending on the system, but does not stop a train before the first red signal.

I don't think someone is ever to blame for anything when they are on the originating end of a call or text to a cellular phone. Cell phones can be turned on or off. I've had friends who've complained that my phone call woke them up... don't want calls? Turn off the phone. I would say that plenty of reasonable people would expect if someone was busy, they might not answer. I see this at work sometimes too, with phone calls answered with a terse "I can't talk now, I'm in a meeting!" So why did you answer the phone?

One of the news reports I just read actually showed a picture of a cell phone having received a message from the engineer at 4:22p. I could have sworn I saw one news article that said the crash occurred at 4:23p. Others just say "just before 4:30." Definitely should not have been using a phone at all while operating, but the several minutes could make a difference as far as causality is concerned.

Who are these "outside contractors?" What happened to railroad employment? Who's doing what to whom?

Merely my opinion but I think things ran a whole lot better when one railroad employeed the train guys and anyone wanting service over the line contracted with the railroad. One book of rules, one known level of performance and discipline, one extra board, one superintendent, 2 trainmasters. End of story

On The Milwaukee of the '70s we all stood to work suburban, Amtrak, freight, etc. Kids, I think things are a bit out of whack.

As for texting to an engineman, let me say this about that. What jobs are there now a days that permits an employee to have good pay and be a hero to someone? Only the railroads or airlines. So when a mere mortal enginman, not having to be a sports or entertainment celebrity finds themselves the object of hero worship the sensation is irresistable. As a one-time 15 year old myself in the now distant year of 1965 I thought that railroaders could do no wrong. I can't remember any great wrecks in that period and all the rails I knew were never in trouble. These were the first adults to tell a kid rumors and off-color jokes. They were heroes indeed. And you could call them by their first names. So we looked up to them. It must be a fabulous experience to be "in the know," and to be able to personally contact a real live rail "hero" when one is 15 years old.

But it's the job of the "hero adult" to know when not to be disturbed. The kids can wait. They're only 15 and have no idea what the responsibilty of the head end is like, and they're thinking that if it's OK with the engineman, it must be OK. Remember I've said that the job of a locomotive engineer is akin to being able to play a flawless game of " Simon Says" for six hours straight, six days a week.

This is a real tragedy... All my thoughts and prayers are with the deceased passengers and crew families and hopefully a lot can be learned to avoid something like this happening in the future!

Is there any update on the condition of the Union Pacific crew?

Associated Press - September 14, 2008 7:54 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A dispatcher tried to warn the engineer of a Metrolink commuter train that he was about to collide with a freight train but the call came too late

http://www.kmir6.com/Global/story.asp?S=9007173