It is currently Tue Mar 19, 2024 4:24 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 47 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 11:42 am 

Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:10 pm
Posts: 670
Location: Iron City
Quote:
The problem is the crew will become lasey and reley on the PTC system. Saw something like that first hand on the Nortistown line, the crew made no effort to ajust speed when the came to a signal and let the saftey system kick in to slow them down.


Nonsense-considering penalty applications are currently logged on the CHMM (crash hardened memory module) along with other operating data...and can be downloaded and reviewing by an operating official.

I have been told that PTC will expand this capability in real time. Your mileage may vary...

Dave

_________________
"Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse."-Thomas Szasz


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 12:10 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:19 pm
Posts: 2556
Location: Sackets Harbor, NY
I strongly remember the sense of well being I experienced while running the 614 trips into Hoboken ( 1996-98) pulling those 24 car long excursion trains when I felt the brakes take hold after I made a 7 lb. reduction about 25 car lengths from the bumper coming into the terminal. Using light throttle ( and sand) against the brakes let me come to a smooth stop a few feet from the bumper and maximize the number of our 24 cars we could get onto the platform.

Let's not rush to any conclusions here. Fortunately the engineer and crew will give full testimony and that coupled to the 2 event recorders should enable a complete picture of the cause.

About 80% of all railroad accidents involve some form of human error. Any enterprise involving human beings contains some element of risk....railroading is no exception.

Let's keep the crew and all those injured in our thoughts and prayers.

Ross Rowland


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 12:35 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:01 am
Posts: 27
Location: Orlando, FL
Dougvv,

The era where pilots have to know how to fly has not passed yet. Not on airliners anyway. Autopilots and other modern equipment are a great help in the overall management of a flight, but are not a substitute for the final back-up system-the well trained human pilot. Autopilots do fail and they are not required to be operational for most flights. They are an MEL (minimum equipment list) item. Even with the autopilot available, the vast majority of pilots frequently hand fly the aircraft to keep those skills current. What the autopilot is really useful for is keeping the crew from the routine flying tasks while allowing much closer monitoring and situational awareness during the flight. Especially useful in very busy terminal areas like NY.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:18 pm 

Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2004 4:02 pm
Posts: 1742
Location: Back in NE Ohio
Technology can be a useful aid. I realize that it can also take away some level of "seat-of-the-pants" skill over time. As a class I engineer, I found it very useful on more modern power to have the "accelerometer" function available for being able to tell in real time how I was doing in staying at the speed I desired, or to know if I was decelerating fast enough to slow to the proper speed for a restriction, or approaching a stop. A lot of the old heads said don't get used to it, that you needed to just run by feel. As with any other function available, be it in an automobile, airplane, or whatever, it's a tool that can make operating the vehicle safer. I personally think that for a standard sedan operating under normal circumstances, a back-up camera is unnecessary, but a lot of people don't. I think things like radar-controlled emergency braking to avoid collisions can be a greater boon, sort of the automotive version of PTC. I grew up learning to drive on cars that barely had any amenities - like power steering, so I guess it depends on your perspective. I've always owned stick shifts, but I'm glad I didn't have to learn to drive on one. I think that is too much for a beginner, although 65 or so years ago, that was all most people had. Maybe the best advice is to learn the basics first, then add the amenities.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 3:30 pm 

Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm
Posts: 914
Hi,

Quote:
it's a tool that can make operating the vehicle safer.


That is the point I was trying to make but could not find the proper words. Thanks.

Quote:
Maybe the best advice is to learn the basics first, then add the amenities.


I learned to drive in 1970. I relied on brains, pencil, paper, and printed books of table for sine, cosine, and tangent for making calculations.

My one stand out experience with a youth of "today" (it's now about 15 years old) was going to a fast food for breakfast. I got to the counter and found out the computer cash register system was out. The teenager who was trying to make change was so flustered or maybe untrained could not subtract with pencil and paper to make change. She had to wait until the drive thru window had finished with the only calculator so she could make change.

She did not know how to make change the "old fashioned" way by starting with the purchase amount and adding pennies to the nearest 5 cents and then nickels, dimes or quarters or dollar bills to get to the $20.00 I paid with. In this case it would have been much faster than waiting for the calculator.

Thank you for making my point clear when I could not find the better words.

Doug vV


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 7:49 am 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:07 am
Posts: 630
To give this thread a historic spin, the NYT has run an article with some historic photos of the terminal

see

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/nyreg ... vivor.html

Bob H


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 11:12 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:12 am
Posts: 569
Location: Somewhere off the coast of New England
I have been a regular reader of The New Yorker since the return of ColonelRogers E. M. Whitaker, late of the United States Army Transportation Corps, to it's staff in the mid-1940s and the wholly coincidental resumption of articles written by one "E. M. Frimbo". While Brother Whitaker, who retired as editor in 1975 to pursue full time reporting, passed away in 1981, it is heartening to see that the journal he spent much of his life with is still capable of producing a proper article concerning a railroad.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-hoboken-crash-and-the-rail-safety-problem

GME
(Who admits to once having thought of Frimbo as being old)

Note: I am defining 'proper' as being completely devoid of the technical errors which drive so many of you to distraction.

_________________
No case so weak nor cause so harebrained that it cannot be handled for an adequate retainer up front.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 2:35 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:07 am
Posts: 630
Trainlawyer wrote:

.... it is heartening to see that the journal he spent much of his life with is still capable of producing a proper article concerning a railroad.
.


How can you say an article that contains phrases like 'may be' and 'it seems likely' is not speculative or likely to lead the reader to jump to conclusions which may or may not be correct????

As they used to say on Dragnet, the facts, just the facts......

Bob H.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 2:58 pm 

Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm
Posts: 1543
Trainlawyer wrote:
I have been a regular reader of The New Yorker since the return of ColonelRogers E. M. Whitaker, late of the United States Army Transportation Corps, to it's staff in the mid-1940s and the wholly coincidental resumption of articles written by one "E. M. Frimbo". While Brother Whitaker, who retired as editor in 1975 to pursue full time reporting, passed away in 1981, it is heartening to see that the journal he spent much of his life with is still capable of producing a proper article concerning a railroad.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-hoboken-crash-and-the-rail-safety-problem

GME
(Who admits to once having thought of Frimbo as being old)

Note: I am defining 'proper' as being completely devoid of the technical errors which drive so many of you to distraction.


I do not understand how the article reaches this conclusion as to the culprit that "seems likely":

“Federal and state inspectors will spend days, perhaps weeks, examining the wreckage before they are able to announce a cause of the crash. One culprit that seems likely, though, is the particularly nasty politics of New Jersey, and of Christie’s decision to block the legislature’s efforts to fund transportation projects.”


Last edited by Ron Travis on Sun Oct 02, 2016 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 6:10 pm 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
safety is about being conscious every moment you are doing anything. Derailments are a little more common than reported and are usually fairly quickly rectified. Not as -commoncommon- but they happen.

The real issue is the daily accidents on the highways and you have this -one-accident at the terminal and all kinds of blames go flying.

One random report said the engineer looked slumped over the controls.
Do they have the dead mans button? If he was incapacitated the train would have gone into braking way earlier.

If he was alert he would have known the train was too fast and take steps to slow the train.

They are not letting anybody in the terminal area because of the structure damage so they cant go in to get the recorders, They would need to stabilze the structure in its damaged condition so they can get in and get the recorders and start some cleaning up.

I wonder if they think they would fully restore the terminal, but it stay closed for a while.

What are the train operations doing now, going to another terminal?


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 2:59 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:54 am
Posts: 1184
Location: Tucson, Arizona
NTSB just confirmed that the Event Recorder was not working on the day of the crash. This has some similarities to the Federal Express crash at Washington Union Station in 1953.

_________________
"When a man runs on railroads over half of his lifetime he is fit for nothing else-and at times he don't know that."- Conductor Nimrod Bell, 1896


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 1:27 am 

Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm
Posts: 2226
on the engine or the lead car? (if it has one).
You should have plenty of witnesses to get some clues.
The engineer should know plenty, or if he was incapacitated, thats the lead cause, he should be your best witness, but I don't think they are releasing any info, especially in this chirpy information age.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 2:04 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:51 pm
Posts: 2037
Location: Southern California
dinwitty wrote:
on the engine or the lead car? (if it has one).
Evidently both the engine and the lead car are expected to have event recorders. The one on the pushing locomotive was found not to be working. The one on the lead car, because of the collapsed and unstable roof structure, had not yet been recovered.

_________________
Brian Norden


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 10:38 am 

Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm
Posts: 1543
The NTSB has stated that the event recorder on the locomotive (on the trailing end of the train) was not required to be working; because it was on the trailing end. They seemed to have dismissed the failure of the one not working on the basis that it was relatively old, and dating from 1995. These comments raise several questions that I have not seen addressed or answered.

Meanwhile, they are trying to get at the other event recorder on the head end of the train. I would not assume that that event recorder will be found to have been working during the crash. But I hope we soon find out.


Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Hoboken Terminal seriously damaged in commuter train cra
PostPosted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 1:29 pm 

Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:54 am
Posts: 1184
Location: Tucson, Arizona
Ron Travis wrote:
The NTSB has stated that the event recorder on the locomotive (on the trailing end of the train) was not required to be working; because it was on the trailing end. They seemed to have dismissed the failure of the one not working on the basis that it was relatively old, and dating from 1995.


Which leads to another question-why would a non-functional event recorder not put the locomotive out of service (regardless of whether it was the controlling unit or not? In the aviation industry, we have mandatory Minimum Equipment Lists. On aircraft required to have a Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder, those instruments are on the MEL. If an item on the MEL is not working, the aircraft is legally considered non-airworthy and cannot be operated. Freight and passenger operations are different animals-in freight you often have multiple locomotives on a train, so having one unit with a non-functional ER is less of an issue. On passenger trains, you rarely have more than one cab car and locomotive or more than two locomotives, so having a non-functional ER is more important.

_________________
"When a man runs on railroads over half of his lifetime he is fit for nothing else-and at times he don't know that."- Conductor Nimrod Bell, 1896


Offline
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 47 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


 Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: