From Trains Newswire: "The NTSB recommends that the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration work together to revise the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for the installation of advance warning devices that specifically use the word “train” to indicate the preemption of highway traffic signals by an approaching train and preemption confirmation lights that would provide advance information on train movements to law enforcement and emergency responders. "
The NTSB does good investigation work, but do they ever have a finding that doesn't recommend spending someone else's money? They should be required to do at least a cursory cost/benefit analysis of their recommendations. It's a wonder the just don't recommend the elimination of all highway road Xings...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd The NTSB does good investigation work, but do they ever have a finding that doesn't recommend spending someone else's money? They should be required to do at least a cursory cost/benefit analysis of their recommendations. It's a wonder the just don't recommend the elimination of all highway road Xings...
That would but too much $$$$ in the governmental sector to be spent on compliance.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD oltmannd The NTSB does good investigation work, but do they ever have a finding that doesn't recommend spending someone else's money? They should be required to do at least a cursory cost/benefit analysis of their recommendations. It's a wonder the just don't recommend the elimination of all highway road Xings... That would but too much $$$$ in the governmental sector to be spent on compliance.
Oh, yeah... I forgot the "other people's money" thing....
oltmanndThe NTSB does good investigation work, but do they ever have a finding that doesn't recommend spending someone else's money?
That is why the NTSB "Recommends" To do otherwise you would have a political monster/nightmare ala the EPA who micromanages whole industries at the whim of a president.
LION could say more but only at the risk of being political. Sufice it to say that the NTSB recommends what should be done and others, those whose problem it is can fix it out of their own pocket.
On grade crossings, we have seen government interventions from back in the '20s: the elimination of grade crossings across state highways: and they ended up with twisted highways and low underpasses that cannot handle today's traffic. A proper intervention would be for the railroad to CLOSE a problem intersection, and let the locality build a new overpass if that is what they want.
ROAR
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The NTSB makes recommendations because that's part of its job. An NTSB accident report is also inadmissible as evidence in court, which explains why the reports include these recommendations without all the fuzziness, cost/benefit analyses and disclaimers that would otherwise be attached. Safety, including accident prevention, is the goal.
News Story ...
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Bad-planning-cited-in-fatal-Midland-parade-crash-4958560.php
Interesting quote: "At the time, the driver missed many of the early warnings of the oncoming train because of several factors, one being that the float in front of him had been blowing a train whistle throughout the parade."
The reaction to the NTSB's recommendations is interesting here. The first thing that pops into peoples' minds is about what would it cost to do rather than is it the right thing to do. If the NTSB or any similar investigative and enforcement agency were tied to financial considerations when ruling, then there would be no sense in investigating or ruling! Yeah, it may cost money to fix something, install something, to administer something. But you didn't ask the NTSB what it would cost, you asked it to find the cause (in Americanese that means "blame) not the cost of fixing. If you don't want to fix, it's up to you, the violator, to decide. Do we want safe roads, railroads, neighborhoods and people or do we parse those conditions by attributing a cost value to safety with the ability to say no to improvements, lets kill some more?
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Agreed. Well said.
BroadwayLion On grade crossings, we have seen government interventions from back in the '20s: the elimination of grade crossings across state highways: and they ended up with twisted highways and low underpasses that cannot handle today's traffic. A proper intervention would be for the railroad to CLOSE a problem intersection, and let the locality build a new overpass if that is what they want.
Are we certain that an overpass built in the 1920s would have been built with clearance enough to handle double stacks? I tend to think that the underpasses you mention, and I've seen a number of them, were built to meet the foreseen needs of the day. I really don't think anyone in 1920 quite envisioned the semis we allow on our roads today. What is today seen as a limiting height was quite sufficient for road vehicles back then.
As to overpasses, there are plenty of old overpasses that have had to be rebuilt to accommodate double stack required clearances.
As they say, hindsight is 20-20. How many old houses do you see around that have a garage that won't fit today's cars?
An interesting part of the linked article is the lawyers contention that NTSB didn't get all of the information they had - like employees they say told them about crossing malfunctions...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
"An interesting part of the linked article is the lawyers contention that NTSB didn't get all of the information they had - like employees they say told them about crossing malfunctions..."
(hearsay) - assume that the City's lawyers are whining along with the culpably negligent parade organizers.
tree68 As they say, hindsight is 20-20. How many old houses do you see around that have a garage that won't fit today's cars?
Unless you are talking about the largest SUV's - todays 'cars' are much smaller than the cars of the chrome age (40s - 50s and early 60s). Garages built in to 20's did not fit the cars of the chrome age, however, they would accomidate many of todays eco-friendly cars.
BaltACD ...they would accomidate many of todays eco-friendly cars.
...they would accomidate many of todays eco-friendly cars.
And some of those cars are small enough that you could fit two... (or maybe three!)
The point remains, though. It was definitely true of our fire station - the 9' high doors weren't quite high enough when we got a new rescue truck - it was 10' high. Today the only thing that would have fit in the old station doors is our brush truck.
henry6The first thing that pops into peoples' minds is about what would it cost to do rather than is it the right thing to do.
Why is a light that says "TRAIN" the right thing to do? Why have the crossing at all? Compared to no crossing, a crossing with lights, gates, etc, is "unsafe."
henry6Yeah, it may cost money to fix something,
Fix? What's broken?
henry6Do we want safe roads, railroads, neighborhoods and people or do we parse those conditions by attributing a cost value to safety with the ability to say no to improvements, lets kill some more?
Okay. We're improving, not fixing. That's better. How do we judge "improved"?
Driving at 10 mph is much safer than at 60 mph, so lets all go 10 mph. Is that "improved"?
Everything is a trade-off. The best method we have for evaluating the trade-offs is cost/benefit - and the NTSB is irresponsible for recommending things that are bad trade-offs. They need to put just a little effort into it IMHO.
There are different considerations in 'efficacy' or in 'efficiency'. For an entity with deep pockets, costs may or may not figure most prominently. Yes, I know, an entity with deep pockets doesn't get, or keep, them by being profligate or careless about money.
It seems to me that an organization charged with providing a list of potential solutions to a defined problem should offer such a list after careful analysis, and to rank order them in order of efficacy, not in terms of costs or any one particular consideration....UNLESS told to keep one or more of the two most imporant considerations in mind when submitting their findings.
Let's be clear, "it" will always be determined by a political/governmental authority in the end, at some level, and a cost will either be shared or absorbed wholly by the entity on whom the eventually decided solution will be imposed. If the solution were only one in number, and the cost about $4M per solution in-situ, I'm pretty sure the only two choices would be go or no-go. Where to get the money is another matter entirely.
Backing up Henry6, the board is responsible for finding the causses of the accident. You who bring up costs are trying give it additional responsibilities that it does not have. An analogy would be for you to tell a judge in a criminal case not to pass what he or she considers an appropriate sentance because the jails are overcrowded and the money is lacking to build new ones.
In this country we invent many boards, authorities, investigative units, commissions, etc., to find answers. Often that is all they are supposed to do...find out why, maybe offer suggested solutions or changes. Few have the authority to issue mandates. So, it is up to the railroads and communities how they will interface safely and efficiently. If you don't want to know why 10 people got killed here or there, why a whole town blew up in flames someplace, then don't invent these entities as they take time and cost money. And when these entities do come back with answers as to what went wrong, who is to blame, and what could or should be done to assure it not happening again, don't shoot the messenger because he did what you asked him to do. If you want or don't want to accept the findings, do or don't want to make the fix, is up to you. I don't understand Oltmann's responses here, but, yes, it takes money to do things...to find out what happened and why, to determine what if anything should be done, and to do what has to be done. Simple. it is, no argument to be made. But debate and determination of following through is a must.. Otherwise there is no sense of investigating in the first place.
henry6 In this country we invent many boards, authorities, investigative units, commissions, etc., to find answers. Often that is all they are supposed to do...find out why, maybe offer suggested solutions or changes. Few have the authority to issue mandates. So, it is up to the railroads and communities how they will interface safely and efficiently. If you don't want to know why 10 people got killed here or there, why a whole town blew up in flames someplace, then don't invent these entities as they take time and cost money. And when these entities do come back with answers as to what went wrong, who is to blame, and what could or should be done to assure it not happening again, don't shoot the messenger because he did what you asked him to do. If you want or don't want to accept the findings, do or don't want to make the fix, is up to you. I don't understand Oltmann's responses here, but, yes, it takes money to do things...to find out what happened and why, to determine what if anything should be done, and to do what has to be done. Simple. it is, no argument to be made. But debate and determination of following through is a must.. Otherwise there is no sense of investigating in the first place.
Your points are well taken. Nonetheless, I suspect that the concern by many for the cost of recommendations such as these is the direct result of the endless waste by government at all levels from local to federal. Hardly a day goes by without new revelations of needless expenditures, frivolous studies, duplication of effort by competing and overlapping entities within government, fraud, etc. It cannot help but cast a cloud of suspicion over what might otherwise be a legitimate activity.
John Timm
A train hits a car on a grade crossing in your town and two people die and traffic is held up for hours on the street.. There is an investigation and the report says the crossing is inadequately protected and suggest an improvement. So, do you make the improvement or do you allow there to be more cars being hit, more people dying, and more traffic blockages. That's all there is to the questions raised here.
henry6There is an investigation and the report says the crossing is inadequately protected and suggest an improvement.
What is the working definition of "inadequate"? Flashers are better that crossbucks. Gates are better than flashers. There are standards. When does a standard become "inadequate"?
desertdogI suspect that the concern by many for the cost of recommendations such as these is the direct result of the endless waste by government at all levels from local to federal. Hardly a day goes by without new revelations of needless expenditures, frivolous studies, duplication of effort by competing and overlapping entities within government, fraud, etc. It cannot help but cast a cloud of suspicion over what might otherwise be a legitimate activity.
I am not worried that the NTSB is wasteful. I am worried that they lob their recommendations over their departmental wall like hand-grenades.
The NTSB does find out useful information, but they don't carry the work across the goal line.
daveklepper Backing up Henry6, the board is responsible for finding the causses of the accident. You who bring up costs are trying give it additional responsibilities that it does not have.
Backing up Henry6, the board is responsible for finding the causses of the accident. You who bring up costs are trying give it additional responsibilities that it does not have.
NTSB recommendations are just that; RECOMMENDATIONS. What the authorities do with them is something else.
NTSB recently made a recommendation regarding aircraft piston engines. The recommendation was sane, however the FAA turned it into an airworthiness directive that would cost some private aircraft owners a huge amount of money and may put one manufacturer out of business. I think it was the FAA that threw the hand grenade; not the NTSB.
Norm
I think there is some misunderstanding of the role of the NTSB. The making of recommendations is part of their direct legeslative mandate that created the agency. It's roots go back to 1926 investigating air accidents. Other modes were added later. It is the role of the oversite agencies, the FRA, the FAA, the DOT etc. to review these recommendations, do the cost benifit studies, obtain input for the effected parties, such as the carriers, the operatiing unions, the public, and taking all of his into account develop regulations. The PTC is a good example where for 20 plus years the NTSB recommended, but the analysis said it was not cost effective, so it wasn't pushed out as a mandate. It took the Congress, not understanding the technical realities to do that.
The mandate and history is at: http://www.ntsb.gov/about/index.html
Norm48327 NTSB recommendations are just that; RECOMMENDATIONS. What the authorities do with them is something else. NTSB recently made a recommendation regarding aircraft piston engines. The recommendation was sane, however the FAA turned it into an airworthiness directive that would cost some private aircraft owners a huge amount of money and may put one manufacturer out of business. I think it was the FAA that threw the hand grenade; not the NTSB.
No doubt.... There are many lobbed grenades in DC these days.
In the case of PTC, who was right and who was wrong is still not settled, and won't be until years after a PTC system is nationwide on the routes that apply and years of experience have accumulated, with the financial as well as the operational and safety results fairly evaluated. But the point is the the NTSB could not force the FRA to do its bidding. There are two agencies, and the FRA is the one that evaluates financial impacts and balances those against pure safety. The balancing is the FRA's job and not the NTSB's.
This thread seems to be about cost, rather than safety.
I wonder what it would be like standing in a room with a grieving widow or parent explaining that an accident like the one that cost them their relative had happened before at the same intersection and an investigation determined that it could have been prevented by a certain change, but we decided it was too expensive to implement.
The NTSB is charged by law with finding that causes of certain accidents and making recommendations that would prevent a reoccurrence. I agree with Henry. Don't shoot the messenger.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
After reading the release, I came away with this.
The NTSB is recommending that in future installations, the manual include the implementation of some type of visual signal to alert police and other “first responders” that
A: a train is somewhere near, and moving toward this particular crossing, and
B: Digicons and other devices used may not clear the automobile traffic signal system because the rail crossing detection protection system may have preempted them.
These “early warning “ devices can be as simple as a lighted sign on the signal box that simply says “TRAIN” or more complex as each situation requires, but should include training LEOS and other first responders where the sign is and what it means.
As most states grade crossing protection are designed by that states DOT, such devices can be as complex or as simple as each state requires.
The system will do nothing more that warn that a train is somewhere near and approaching, regardless of what the crossing protection devices are indicating....the train may be a mile away, or one crossing down the line, each installation will require location specific design.
Part of the initial NTSB report stated that both the parade participants and the local police had unintentionally created a false sense of security and safety because they, the police escort, had preempted several traffic safety devices at earlier intersections with no incidents, and expected the same at this particular location, partly because there was an automobile traffic intersection just on the near side of the rail crossing, and they had focused on that instead of the grade crossing.
As a railroader, I would welcome such a device, and I can see where it does not have to be any more complex that a simple magnetic detection loop that activates a flashing light on the signal box or near the appropriate road side of the crossing.
I can also see where the installation of such system may be limited to particular or select crossings and intersections, such as this one with nearby auto traffic intersection.
This accident is eerily familiar to the Fox River Grove school bus accident, where a 39 foot long school bus occupied a traffic light approach that only allowed 35 feet of the bus to clear the rail crossing.
From a cost view point, I can imaging it may be more expensive to train all those who would benefit from this…State Police, LEOS, first responders, school bus drivers, municipal bus drivers and municipal employees.
23 17 46 11
I can see value in the recommendations as Ed describes, but the devil is in the details.
A city near here has exactly two crossings (all others have been eliminated over time).
It is dark territory, so there is not block signaling from which to draw "train is near" information. Further the two crossings, well over a mile apart, are separated by a permanent 15 MPH slow order. The nearest traffic light is several hundred yards away. And while a couple of parades do use one of the crossings, the intersection is at a near 90 degree angle, so there is no situation like the one in the Texas incident. The application of the recommendations here would be of extremely limited use.
Which makes the recommendations highly situational.
I would argue that they could actually be counter productive, once the public finds out what the chosen indicator means - unless it is very difficult for the general public to see under normal circumstances. And in a case like the Fox River Grove incident, it would have to be located somewhere other than the signal box, which may not currently be placed such that it can be viewed by a bus driver in such a situation.
The education part, however, while carrying a cost, could be priceless. One of the problems with preventive teaching, though, is that you can't usually measure the success. Incidents that don't occur don't generally get reported. In the Texas incident, if even the planning that had occured in the past had been done, the incident would likely never have happened, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
There is one Federal Law that should be passed as quickly as possible, on the basis of protecting interstate commerce. "Use of whistles or bells or other audio devices manufactured for the specific purpose of warning of railroad operatons shall be prohibited from any other use withiin 1/2 miles of any active railroad or rail transit line, unless indoors in a clearly concert situation with sufficient sound isolation to prevent audible recognition outside the building." I think such a law would make a great deal of sense, and perhaps the same kind of thinkiing should be applied to fire alarms and lighthouse horns.
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