operator error

12/1/2013 10:07:40 AM

Was texting I bet.

12/1/2013 10:08:29 AM

speeding

12/1/2013 1:44:57 PM

first Walker
now this

trifecta?

12/1/2013 2:03:57 PM

There have been a ton of derailments this year in North America

12/1/2013 2:47:59 PM

pennies on the track

12/1/2013 2:51:41 PM

12/1/2013 2:59:15 PM

me thinks he was speeding around the bend

12/1/2013 3:18:18 PM

The operator claims the brakes were applied but the train didn't respond.

12/1/2013 4:29:23 PM

12/1/2013 4:52:18 PM

I bet it was hackers, probably the same people who made that train move in Chicago

12/1/2013 7:44:52 PM

Mechanical Failure

12/1/2013 11:44:28 PM

Quote :

"The operator claims the brakes were applied but the train didn't respond."

I suspect the black box will show this isn't true, but we'll see.

Positive Train Control (which should in theory prevent anything like this from ever happening) is mandated to be installed on all US passenger railroads and freight railroads that carry hazardous materials by 2015.

12/2/2013 1:34:47 AM

Speeding is what, 40 mph?

12/2/2013 4:39:40 AM

if Chris Pine and Denzel Washington had been driving, this would not have happened

12/2/2013 5:59:52 AM

NTSB says the train was going 82 mph in a 30 mph curve.

12/2/2013 4:54:03 PM

I think we have a winner with operator error:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/02/us/new-york-train-derails/index.html

New York (CNN) -- The commuter train involved in a deadly weekend derailment in the Bronx was doing 82 mph as it entered the 30-mph curve where it jumped the tracks, federal safety officials said Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported that figure based on preliminary data from the event recorders taken from the locomotive and another car, NTSB member Earl Weener told reporters. The data showed the engineer cut the throttle six seconds before the locomotive came to rest and applied the brakes five seconds before, a move Weener said came "very late in the game."

Four people died in the Sunday morning crash on New York's Metro-North commuter line, about 10 miles north of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal. At least 67 more were hurt.

The recorded speed is not only far faster than the rated speed for the curve where the derailment occurred, it's faster than the 70 mph posted for the section of track that led into the curve, Weener said.

The engineer, William Rockefeller, and the rest of the train crew were still being questioned Monday afternoon, and the cause of the derailment has not yet been determined, Weener said.

"This is raw data off the event recorders, so it tells us what happened. It doesn't tell us why it happened," Weener said.

12/2/2013 4:58:44 PM

yeah I gotta wonder why trains aren't fully automated yet. Much simpler than cars with so much more deviation and variables.

12/2/2013 5:10:25 PM

hope the driver can piss clean and wasnt texting

or hes fucked

12/2/2013 6:27:30 PM

Lack of investment in transit in general primarily. There are a number of automated rail lines abroad, but as a percentage of our state and federal spending, we spend virtually nothing on mass transit and even in transportation in general we dedicate a far smaller slice of the pie than most other industrialized countries. On a lot of these systems there are many more priorities before we even get to thinking about automation. That said, there are some semi-automated NYC subway lines and BART in San Francisco is fully automated. Oddly enough, the MTA just awarded two weeks ago the contract to fully automate its commuter rail lines.

Also, specifically for NYC, all automation efforts have been met with extreme resistance from the transit unions. I'm very pro-union in general, but the transit unions here wield way too much power.

12/2/2013 6:32:09 PM

Quote :

"yeah I gotta wonder why trains aren't fully automated yet. Much simpler than cars with so much more deviation and variables. "

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0930/Chicago-train-crash-What-started-the-empty-train
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-great-chicago-ghost-train-mystery

hackers

12/2/2013 6:38:18 PM

2 Fast 2 Furious

12/2/2013 6:41:37 PM