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| Re: SEPTA to spend $100 million on PTC (unfunded federal mandate); other projects take hit (1142449) | |||
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Re: SEPTA to spend $100 million on PTC (unfunded federal mandate); other projects take hit |
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Posted by Jersey Mike on Thu Mar 1 12:32:28 2012, in response to Re: SEPTA to spend $100 million on PTC (unfunded federal mandate); other projects take hit, posted by WillD on Thu Mar 1 01:02:34 2012. Again with your requirement that we have bloodied and broken bodies lying across the tracks before we can justify the expenditure for even the most rudimentary safety implements recommended by the NTSB.The best indication of future risk is past performance so yes, SEPTA shoudl demonstrate that they are operating unsafely before they are required to remedy anything. It is stupid to install "safety" devices simply to prevent an event that "might" happen. Trying to make something like rail transit is not only impossible, but also a massive waste of resources that would be better spent on service expansions to get people out of their cars. If you want to save lives grade crossing elimination and/or full RoW fencing would get more bang for the buck if you really must protect people from their own stupidity. Seriously dude, life is dangerous sometimes, accept the risk. That is completely and utterly false. It is absolutely unacceptable for two trains to touch each other in any way. 36 lawsuits and 39 claims originated from the Abington cornfield meet. Even if they were settled for an average of less than 1 million dollars the PTC system will have paid for itself with just 3 averted collisions. Which there haven't been in over 30 years of operation so it would not have paid for itself. You also assume that PTC is not only costless to maintain year in and year out, but also costless in terms of operational performance. Are you prepared for even slower service if PTC gets installed? Metrolink offered a $200 million dollar settlement to the families of the 25 people killed in the Chatsworth collision. $10 million is much closer to the amount any transit system could expect to pay in damages for each person killed in a collision. Then states should pass laws to give immunity to transit providers or they should install cost effective cab signal and ATC systems that are proven and not simply a gift to the signal and consulting industry's bottom line. What do people expect for their state subsudized ticket...to live forever? The engineer of the southbound train passed three signals without obeying them, and was operating at speeds in excess of the indications he claimed to have seen on the signals he'd violated. Reaching over to acknowledge the signal, or worse, cut out the cab signal system because he thought he knew better would not have been out of the question. By your logic then the engineer could have hit the stop release feature on the PTC system and proceeded into the path of the oncomming train...orsimply cut out the PTC. There's a difference between preventing accidents and malicious behavior. Active alerting system are astonishingly effective unless willfully disabled as no engineer usually WANTS to be fired or to die in a crash. Anyway, watch this and see how the PRR solved this sort of problem 80 years ago. Start at about 3:40 in. |
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