NTSB Issues Safety Recommendations to Metro North

DutchRailnut wrote:putting up to many signs, to much automation etc, only opens job up to less and less qualified people.
therefore making it more prone to other mistakes, and making risk greater.
All the knee jerk reactions by NTSB - FRA - politicians will get you accident sooner, not later.
Spuyten Duyvil curve was safe for over 100 years with nearly 200 trains a day, Do you really believe it will me more or less time for next accident ?????

Aka "I don't want increased competition to lower my wages or break my strike."

Every statement you make is completely self-serving and it destroys your credibility when you might actually have some sort of valid point on safety. You're attitude is the reason why Unions are dead in this country. Instead of a cheap, common sense practice of putting up speed restriction signs your first concern is that the secret rules of the road are not released to anyone who has not bee properly initiated. This is a 21st century railroad, not a medieval guild. Employees are fungible, deal with it.

what's da matter Mickey trying to lower bar so you can get in ???, how is it self serving, I did my 30 plus years with no incidents.
Its all about qualifications, not by lowering standards and makeing it like you can operate a choo choo.

I do not agree with all of my co-workers here. I do think signs should be in place for all speed restrictions. I do not think it's dumbing down the craft. However, because engineers are qualified on the speeds they are responsible for knowing where restrictions are in effect even in the absence of signage. With all these temporary speed restrictions MNR has these days it is the engineers responsibility to follow documented restrictions even if the signs are missing, as has happened frequently in recent days, even the first day right after the derailment. The signs are only reminders. Even the NTSB has said that if such signage was in place it might not have made a difference in the Spuyten Duyvil derailment.

A decent number of people do not make it through the Engineer and even the Conductor training programs as they are now. So I don't see it as dumbing down the craft by putting signage wayside, engineers at least still have to memorize the restrictions anyway. And having a sign posted at an exact location would ensure that all trains are reducing speed at the exact same place not 500ft before or after because speed restrictions are only specific to the 1/10 of a mile.

Jersey_Mike wrote:Employees are fungible, deal with it.

I have to say that this is definitely NOT the case. Employees are fungible exactly the same way that you can use a screwdriver as a hammer. The job might get done, but the probability of success is low, the quality will be poor, and you are likely to wind up with some skinned knuckles.

My wife is a teacher. There are some folks who have the appropriate temperament, and are cut out to be teachers. There are others who are not. Even for those who have the underlying ability, it takes years of training and experience before they truly become master teachers. Now there are some out there who argue that anyone can be a teacher, and that the years of training are not really required. Frankly, they are dead wrong -- and the measured results in educational outcomes back that up. It's not just about knowing the subject, and having an intellectual understanding of how to teach. It's not just about having a copy of the curriculum [although it is a useful guide]. It's about knowing in your bones how to share that subject with students in such a way that they are engaged in learning and internalize the knowledge.

I would argue that the same holds true in the realm of railroad engineers. Some folks will never pick up the skills, never be able to master the characteristics of the equipment which they are operating. Others can be trained and learn the task - given enough time and guidance. But is the fundamental feature of the craft to have every single bit of information about the line memorized? Or is it rather to be able to apply that knowledge, together with a fundamental understanding of the behavior of the equipment and the meaning of that information to safely operate a train on the line?

So yeah - long term knowledge of your craft is important. But to eschew potentially helpful trackside aids is just a silly for engineers as it is for teachers to teach without consulting the documented curriculum...

The problem with way side sign's is, your gone trust them, and depend on them.
In long run you may miss one due to weather or just because all sudden its missing.
Those signs do make it easy to blame carrier when Engineer makes mistake.
Would it have done any good for train 8808 , absolutely not.

If you'd like an example, in my opinion, of an idiot sign, SEPTA's subways have signs that say "right side doors->" and "<-left side doors", I believe because they think their motormen can't tell which side the station platform is, but apparently they think if they don't see an 8 car platform they'll see a 1 foot sign.

Aka "I don't want increased competition to lower my wages or break my strike."

Every statement you make is completely self-serving and it destroys your credibility when you might actually have some sort of valid point on safety. You're attitude is the reason why Unions are dead in this country. Instead of a cheap, common sense practice of putting up speed restriction signs your first concern is that the secret rules of the road are not released to anyone who has not bee properly initiated. This is a 21st century railroad, not a medieval guild. Employees are fungible, deal with it.

What are you talking about? What the man said has nothing to do with wages or strikes but everything to do with the dumbing of the craft. Like it or not this profession requires a person of a certain caliber. It's crystal clear everything that is coming from the NTSB is knee jerk. They don't have an answer so in typical limousine liberal fashion they come out with a bunch of "recommendations" that make absolutely no sense. Cheap and common sense? It's the government agencies who are driving PTC, Cameras, etc. He only mentioned signs as if they would be a replacement of having to know every restriction by memory, which would be dangerous. Who am I talking to anyway? Some buff who thinks he has a say because he learned a few definitions and signal aspects from some operating employees. How does it feel knowing a few useless tidbits about an industry you have never worked a day in? BTW, fungible? It will take over a year to replace me.

Patrick Boylan wrote:If you'd like an example, in my opinion, of an idiot sign, SEPTA's subways have signs that say "right side doors->" and "<-left side doors", I believe because they think their motormen can't tell which side the station platform is, but apparently they think if they don't see an 8 car platform they'll see a 1 foot sign.

Do the cabs stop at the platform or slightly beyond? I wonder if there was an incident where someone got it wrong. It seems that a lot of "idiot signs" start with an avoidable simple mistake.

Delay In Block signs are common ... and hopefully not an insult. One would think that an engineer qualified on a territory would know that the next signal is not an intermediate. Yet the signs exist.

Patrick Boylan wrote:If you'd like an example, in my opinion, of an idiot sign, SEPTA's subways have signs that say "right side doors->" and "<-left side doors", I believe because they think their motormen can't tell which side the station platform is, but apparently they think if they don't see an 8 car platform they'll see a 1 foot sign.

I asked an acquaintance at SEPTA what the point was when I first noticed those signs, and he said they have actually had instances when the operator opened doors on the wrong side. So it's not just that SEPTA thinks their motormen can't tell -- they've FOUND OUT that some of them can't, at least some of the time.

Not everything that seems silly is. NYC Subway Conductors must literally point at the platform mid-point signs to ensure they have seen them. When I first saw it, I laughed. Then I decided to do the same myself; my campus switched to hang tags rather than permanent decals for parking permits. Since I can't drive with it hanging there, and even velcroed to my dashboard, I fretted about forgetting to hang it and thus get a ticket, I always point at the hang tag just after I've placed it, it's given me near complete piece of mind for a year and a half now despite how silly it seems. I won't comment on the procedures in question as I'm not an engineer and can't speak with any authority about such matters for or against such signs, but I'd hope people can keep open minds about things.

MattW wrote:Not everything that seems silly is. NYC Subway Conductors must literally point at the platform mid-point signs to ensure they have seen them. When I first saw it, I laughed. Then I decided to do the same myself; my campus switched to hang tags rather than permanent decals for parking permits. Since I can't drive with it hanging there, and even velcroed to my dashboard, I fretted about forgetting to hang it and thus get a ticket, I always point at the hang tag just after I've placed it, it's given me near complete piece of mind for a year and a half now despite how silly it seems. I won't comment on the procedures in question as I'm not an engineer and can't speak with any authority about such matters for or against such signs, but I'd hope people can keep open minds about things.

You wrote a good comment. Based on my many years of working in a federally and state regulated industry, one thing regulated companies like to see when a regulator adds a task, is that a cost - benefit analysis be performed by the regulator to demonstrate the need for the new requirement. It may well be that the NTSB views the installation and maintenance of signs as a minimal cost in the greater scheme of things, and if a sign in even a single instance prevents a major incident it is money well spent. In other words, Dutch is absolutely correct that the signs in the vast majority of cases will not contribute to safe operations by the expert engineers, but if in one or a few instances over the years they do - and that certainly is possible given human frailties - the potential benefit of avoiding a serious event far outweighs the cost of the signs.

I'm retired now, but worked on Conrail/Metro-North/Amtrak for 32+ years. I ran it all, from hostling, to commuter, to Amtrak passenger, to local/yard freight, to over-the-road freight. My opinions are my own. I don't particularly care what others think.

In all that time, I saw little good come from [nearly] anything the NTSB "recommended".

Nor did I ever consider the FRA to be a friend of the working railroader.
If anything, since the 1990's their intrusion into operations have become increasingly heavy-handed.

To make matters worse, now Congress believes it can "make railroading safe" with laws that mandate postive train control by a certain date -- without any knowledge of the enormity of that task, the amount of money involved, or how such new devices will affect train handling and operations.

That doesn't mean I was a shill for management, either. I had my opportunities to go into management, and let it all pass by. My place was on the engine.

Had lunch with an old friend, also a retired engineman with around 40 years of time. His sentiments are essentially the same.

Glad we don't have to work there anymore, and sympathize with the B.S. that guys face today!

To you folks who thing putting up too many signs represents dumbing down, and opening up to less qualified people:

How do you feel about the W signs before virtually every grade crossing?
Airplane pilots and astronauts read a sheet or sheets of paper, I believe they call it a checklist, before each flight. Do you think that has opened up airplanes and outer space to less qualified people?

Both those examples have been around for a long time.

absolutely these days the pilots are glorified bus drivers, all automated, ask my son, he switched from Pilot to Engineer.
better pay, more overtime, and it won't take 15 years to start making money.

Hand the checklist to someone who does not know the equipment and see how well they do.
The machines are complicated. Having a written checklist is a good idea. It doesn't dumb down the job ... it helps to improve job performance.

If the "W" and "W MX" signs were reminders to whistle for crossings they could be considered an insult ... but they are a visual cue to the engineer of where they are on the railroad and how close the next crossing is. Every rules qualified engineer (is there any other kind?) knows to whistle for crossings. The dumbing down would be if the train blew its own whistle.