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New story on the Northridge Metrolink crash.

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[quote user="edblysard"]Plus he passes a flashing yellow (GCOR approach restricting, prepared to pass the next signal at restricted speed) before the station, so knowing his territory, and knowing the next signal was protecting a siding, he should have left the station at restricted speed, prepared to either pass that signal at restricted speed or stop, even if that next signal was green.[/quote]   Ed, You bring up an interesting point about the engineer violating the approach signal.  I know the details of the signals have been laid out by others in previous threads, and perhaps they were thoroughly explained and explored, but I do not completely understand a few issues.  These are some of the points as I understand them.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> The engineer passed a flashing yellow before entering the station.  This would tell him that the he should proceed, expecting the next signal to be red.  I did not know that once he passed the flashing yellow, he could not exceed 20mph between the flashing yellow signal and the next signal, regardless of what aspect the next signal displayed once it came into view.     <o:p></o:p> So after passing the flashing yellow, the engineer stopped at the station, and by that point, the next signal was within his view, and it was red.  So the engineer sat at the station for some brief period, facing a red signal that was within his sight.  Then he left the station, accelerated to track speed, approached the red signal, and ran past it.  So as I understand it, the red signal that he ran past, would have been red from the moment it first came into his sight, which must have been prior to his stopping at the station.  Even with extreme distraction, it is hard to imagine how he could have failed to recognize the red signal, considering that it was within his sight for probably several minutes, including a period when he was stopped. <o:p></o:p> Now some are saying that the final light was green when he left the station.  But you are saying that even if it were green, he was still obligated to stay under 20 mph until he passed it.  And evidence indicates he accelerated way beyond the 20 mph restricted limit.   <o:p></o:p> Those who contend that the final light was green seem to be suggesting that his guilt or innocence pivots on the color of the final signal.  They seem to be ignoring the issue of the engineer violating the preceding signal, which required him to stay under 20mph no matter what color the next signal was.  So if their signal failure theory were true, it would mean that two relatively rare events occurred almost simultaneously.  Those two events would be that he (1) violated the first signal, which was directly related to the second signal, and then (2) the second signal malfunctioned.  I am suggesting that violating the approach signal was a relatively rare event because it does not seem likely that an engineer could routinely do it and stay out of trouble.  <o:p></o:p> However, aside from the forgoing, as I read the account in Trains, it seems quite different than my understanding as given above.  They don’t say anything about an approach signal.  They say the engineer was obligated to approach the red signal at restricted speed because his station stop meant he was delayed in block, not that he was obligated to approach the red signal at restricted speed because of a preceding flashing yellow signal. But an approach obligation arising from being delayed in block seems moot because he could already see the red signal, so there was no question about approaching it prepared to stop in case he found it to be red.
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