by BuddSilverliner269
Sand Box John wrote:"NJTMatt", quote="jb9152"Hey Sand Box. Are you a railroader? If not then please stop questioning testimony from fellow railroaders. Im a student engineer at Amtrak , having been an engineer at Septa for 4 years and I personally am good friends with NJT Matt and I know Silverliner 2 who is a CSX engineer. You are reading from rapid transit signal manuals which is a different signalling system altogether. In all the AMERICAN RAILROADS the only railroad in the country that has a cab signal that will prevent a stop signal over run is Amtrak on the NEC. Im not sure about that cab signal system Amtrak is using in Michagin.Yes on rapid transit line, its hard to run a stop signal but we arent talking about rapid transit and we arent talking about European rails.Although I was hired for Amtraks NEC I had to learn about the system in use in California as well. There is no cab signal rules in effect. Theres basically a magnet system on the side of the block signals ,along the tracks, which energizes something on the locomtive everytime you pass something that is less favorable then a clear signal.All this does is set an alarm off in the cab and the engineer has to simply acknowledge. If he doesnt acknowledge then the brakes come on. After you acknowledge, its doesnt keep you at a certain speed and doesnt prevent you running stop signals or head on collisions.Remember this isnt a cab signal but this was the only way that railroads who employ this system was only able to do over 79mph without cab signals.In my opinion its the poor man railroads signalling system, but even with cab signals if you come up to a stop signal, you will have a restricting code which limits the train to 20 mph and doesnt prevent a train from running a stop signal. In the end, its still up to the engineer to pay attention regardless if you have cabs or not.I know there will be changes in rules because of this accident. I feel sorry for everyone who was injured and killed, and I feel sorry fopr the kids who have to live the rest of there lives knowing that there text message could possibly have caused this. Its not there fault because its up to the engineer to ignore his/her phone while on the job.
It appears to me that your explanations of ATC is not a true ATC system but is a passive version of ATP. In the signal maintainer manuals that I have that were written for rapid transit ATC applacation, no speed commands / cab signals means stop. ATP in the same manuals allows the train engineer / operator to proceed with no speed commands / cab signals at restricted speed being prepared to stop at the next signal or obstruction.
In this particular case the signal was an interlocking signal. In my signal maintainer manuals interlocking signals are stop and stay signals.