BaltACD charlie hebdo If the Amtrak tracks are owned by Amtrak, how do CSX employees have any more rights to be on Amtrak property than any other (non Amtrak) person, unless they had secured permission in advance for a specified time period? Seems like trespassing otherwise. Google Earth image of the area - Who's tracks are Who's.
charlie hebdo If the Amtrak tracks are owned by Amtrak, how do CSX employees have any more rights to be on Amtrak property than any other (non Amtrak) person, unless they had secured permission in advance for a specified time period? Seems like trespassing otherwise.
Google Earth image of the area - Who's tracks are Who's.
A diagram and a photo map on page 1 of the NTSB report clearly identifies the tracks. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RAB1901.pdf
In the image in the quote here, the group of tracks in the upper left corner are CSX, and the group closest to the parking lot are Amtrak tracks.
Euclid BaltACD charlie hebdo If the Amtrak tracks are owned by Amtrak, how do CSX employees have any more rights to be on Amtrak property than any other (non Amtrak) person, unless they had secured permission in advance for a specified time period? Seems like trespassing otherwise. Google Earth image of the area - Who's tracks are Who's. A diagram and a photo map on page 1 of the NTSB report clearly identifies the tracks. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RAB1901.pdf In the image in the quote here, the group of tracks in the upper left corner are CSX, and the group closest to the parking lot are Amtrak tracks.
That is what zugmann said. So the question you posed remains. Did the CSX workers obtain proper authorization to occupy Amtrak tracks? If they did or did not, there is something wrong with a system that would allow the Amtrak train to come through at speed.
Not according to the NTSB
Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the CSX Transportation train Q137 crew’s decision to walk near an active track without protection. Contributing to the accident was their focus on northbound Amtrak train P66 and their failure to realize Amtrak train P175 was approaching them from behind.
The question of whether CSX employees were trespassing by walking on Amtrak tracks is not addressed by the NTSB. That unanswered question resides somewhere within the disjointed and ambiguous NTSB coverage of the topic of the two CSX conductors walking in the Amtrak track instead of CSX property.
That coverage consists of the following points made by the NTSB that are related to CSX employees being on Amtrak property in the following quotes:
“The operating crews were not prohibited from walking either on or near the Amtrak tracks.”
“The NTSB believes that the crew should have been prohibited from walking near the live tracks of the other railroad.”
“However, there are circumstances when the operating employees cannot safely walk away from the other railroad’s tracks. In these situations, when the crew is fouling the other railroad’s adjacent track, they would need protection.9 A current process is readily available to provide this protection.”
“The NTSB believes that this same communication could be used to protect employees that find it necessary to occupy the other railroad’s active tracks. Therefore, to eliminate the hazard of unknown traffic on adjacent tracks of other railroads, the NTSB recommends that CSX and Amtrak prohibit employees from fouling adjacent tracks of another railroad unless the employees are provided protection from trains and/or equipment on the adjacent tracks by means of communication between the two railroads.”
“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the CSX Transportation train Q137 crew’s decision to walk near an active track without protection.”
There is considerable ambiguity in these NTSB statements. The first statement seems to mean that CSX railroad employees are free to walk on the property of another railroad and do so without protection.
However, in the third statement, the NTSB says that if CSX employees are choose to walk on the property of another railroad; and if that walking fouls the track of the other railroad, it requires protection under an established procedure that is readily available.
So the first statement makes it sound like the CSX employees did not need protection and therefore did nothing wrong. Yet the third statement says that the CSX employees did require protection while fouling the Amtrak line; and therefore, they broke the rule by walking on the Amtrak track within its foul zone.
The fifth statement seems to confirm that the CSX employees broke the rule because it says that the CSX employees’ decision to walk near an active track without protection caused the accident.
HOWEVER: The fourth statement makes it sound like the seeking of protection related to fouling the Amtrak track was not and is not an option, so NTSB recommends that it be make an option. This seems to conflict with their third statement in which they seem to say that seeking status of protection was an option. So which way is it? Well, if it was not an option, does that therefore mean that the CSX employees were not breaking any rule because as their first statement says, “The operating crews were not prohibited from walking either on or near the Amtrak tracks.”?
If they were not prohibited from walking “on” the Amtrak tracks, which they did, then if follows that they did not need protection. If they were not prohibited from walking on the Amtrak tracks without protection, how can their decision to walk on the track without protection, be the probable cause of the accident?
Sounds like the NTSB sees the problem is systemic, requiring some structural changes to prevent such avoidable errors, as the current system failed miserably.
The NTSB does not say that the employees were required to obtain protection to walk on the Amtrak tracks. They do say that per General Safety Rule 10, the operating crews were not prohibited from walking either on or near the Amtrak tracks.
Rule 10 only requires employees to “Stop and look in both directions before making any of the following movements: - Fouling or crossing a track…”
So the CSX employees were fouling a track and they were required to look both ways before fouling. However, if they did that, the rule would allow them to maintain fouling while walking on the track for an indefinite distance. What is missing from Rule 10 in this case is a requirement to look back at specified intervals during the continuous fouling associated with a long walk on the track, in line with it.
So it is true that Rule 10 does not prohibit employees from walking on a track lengthwise with it, however the rule also does not provide any procedure for employees to walk lengthwise on the track, as the CSX employees were doing. Rule 10 does require employees to be alert while on or near tracks, but a fully alert person could still be blindsided by a train if it sneaks up on them from behind and its horn warning is merged with the horn warning of a second train approaching from their front.
Therefore, without a means to seek protection on the Amtrak property; and without a requirement to do so; and with no rule telling them not to walk on the Amtrak track— there was nothing in the rules governing the action of the two employees in walking lengthwise on the Amtrak track.
This leaves the obvious question: If the two conductors were not doing anything wrong, how could the cause of their deaths be their fault as the NTSB determines with their Probable Cause in their report?
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