October 26th, 2022

[Overmod]

Guys, my original comment was as a joke, and I only went into detail regarding the 5 vs 9 year choice of timeframe.  Any actual discussion of the trial or the original accident should be in relevant threads, or in PMs as I now do for some issues.  Let’s not turn the thread itself into a self-fulfilling prophecy for 10/22...

[Norm48327]

Overmod

Yes, but... ... the story about the trial proceedings, what the witnesses and counsel said and didn’t say, how the news workers use the fact of the trial to spin things ... THAT is the focus of the present discussion. Not rehashing what we understand to be the matters of fact, or what we think about management or employees or training policies — but rather what the Court is saying about those things. Now, much of the present discussion has involved a certain amount of speculation about specific questions or lines of questioning that we’d like to see raised, and while this can verge over into a certain amount of wishful thinking or even castigation it still involves the trial’s interpretation of the ‘facts of the case’ and not reopening the speculo-fest of the original post-accident thread... which a number of posters obstinately keep trying to do. My attempt at humor was to note that the ‘Trial’ thread was likely to drag on even longer than the other one did. It did not occur to me that the original discussion might be hellishly resurrected repeatedly to trouble our lives and yea perhaps our very souls. But as the Yale band said to Princeton at a football game in November, Halloween’s over, so perhaps there can be hope for a while.

Overmod,

Your post makes sense. Things are now in the hands of the jury and the conclusion they reach has yet to be seen. It is natural that the prosecution go for the 'low hanging fruit' and the enginer appears to be the most appropriate scapegoat therefore he and his immediate controllers appear to be the targets most likely to be convicted from the prosecuter's point of view.

Does that make Harding the entirely culpable one or are there other responsibilities that would lead to top management of the entire company? IIRC, his supervisor and the RTC both said he was dead on the law and should leave the train as is. My military training said "follow your last order first". Perhaps that is what he did.

It is now up to the jury to decide Harding's fate but given the emotional effect of those who lost their lives and their kin I don't believe he will get a fair trial unless the venue is moved to Alberta where folks have little knowledge of the accident.

[Murphy Siding]

October 26th, 2022:

Newswire posts stickied at the top make up the first 15 threads on page 1