Should Trains mag and Railway Age host a conferance for Media Professionals on reporting on railroads?

[trackrat888]

I for one am tired of the phrase "she got hit by a train" as if the train jumped over and assulted the poor victim. It should be more like " She wandered unauthorised into the railroads right of way and was struck by oncoming train. The ignorance of even who drives trains and what a conducter does or even how trains stay on the tracks is appauling from media professionals and wire services

[cx500]

Nice idea, except nobody would attend.  The media have severely cut back their reporters to skeleton levels so would see no reason to indulge in the luxury of sending any to a conference.  In any case, sensationalized stories attract more readers and viewers than accurate ones, and ratings are what counts.

[tree68]

Methinks the emphasis should be on the folks to talk to the reporters (such as they are).  That would be the public safety personnel.  I would opine that they are sometimes as ignorant regarding trespassing as the trespassers themselves.  I can say that because I am one (a "first reponder," that is).

Of course, we have that whole "self esteem" issue - we can't be suggesting that the poor soul may have actually done something wrong now, can we?  A lot of people aren't going to like it when the article in the news says "she'd be alive today if she hadn't been trespassing on the tracks..."

Besides, if you saw my thread about the photo of the woman walking in the gauge, and some of the responses my letter to the editor got locally, you'd know it's really a lost cause.  All the warning in the world won't get those people off the tracks.

[ChuckCobleigh]

trackrat888

...media professional...

Often an oxymoron.

[Semper Vaporo]

I don't think that nobody would attend... there would be some that would come... unfortunately the ones that would attend would be the ones that already have some knowledge of the subject.  Thus, the conference would not reach the intended goal of getting those that don't know anything about the subject to get a wee bit of understanding.  I have seen it before in other disciplines.

 

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Used to be an association of RR PR persons - I suppose that it's defunct now. 

Do it as a 'webinar' / televised 2-way conference to save on the fees, time, travel costs, etc.  In addition to those 2 magazines (plus Progressive Railroading), let the railroad public affairs people host & present it.

What surprised me is that UP alone has about 22 Public Affairs - Community Contacts personnel !  See:

 http://www.up.com/aboutup/community/community_contacts/ 

Maybe the news people can get "Continuing Professional Education" credits of some kind, if that's required or helpful in their business.

- Paul North.    

[schlimm]

trackrat888

I for one am tired of the phrase "she got hit by a train" as if the train jumped over and assulted the poor victim. It should be more like " She wandered unauthorised into the railroads right of way and was struck by oncoming train. The ignorance of even who drives trains and what a conducter does or even how trains stay on the tracks is appauling from media professionals and wire services

 

Since you are so incensed about the ignorance of others, you might check your own spelling in your headline and post, as well as learn to write with fewer words.   "Woman Struck by Train" or "Train Strikes Woman" is a headline, thus needs to be very brief.  But perhaps you would like to say "Woman Strikes Train" and be laughed at by ~98% of the population?

[dakotafred]

To me, retired from newspapering, the problem is purely with the supervision at papers and at radio/TV.

You can't expect a reporter or copy editor, especially in less-than-major markets, to come in knowing about railroads. Many of them somehow got out of public school and four years of college without so much as business math.

It's an editor's job to instill the basics about local businesses and situations that keep showing up in the news. Not only with reporters but with the copy desk.

Recently I was astonished to read, in the Cheyenne newspaper, that the extensive trackage thru the heart of town belongs to the BNSF rather than to UP. The reporter's byline was unfamiliar, a greenhorn's.

If I owned that paper, it would be the editor taken to the woodshed, not the poor ignorant reporter. 

 

 

[schlimm]

dakotafred

To me, retired from newspapering, the problem is purely with the supervision at papers and at radio/TV. You can't expect a reporter or copy editor, especially in less-than-major markets, to come in knowing about railroads. Many of them somehow got out of public school and four years of college without so much as business math.

So true.  Sadly, other than having taken some bus. admin courses, the newer managers often know very little about the actual business, whether in media or other fields.  "The blind leading the blind, etc."

[Euclid]

Saying that somebody or something was struck by something else is only a statement of physics.  It has nothing to do with fault or blame. 

Not in a million years does the phrase “woman struck by train” mean that the train is guilty of committing a hostile act of aggression against an innocent woman.        

[dknelson]

I was an officer in a Fortune 500 company for 36 years -- not in the rail or transportation industries -- and I can tell you that the railroads have no unique basis for complaint about how the news media reports on the business and "gets it wrong."  And this in spite of the fact that newspapers, magazines, and even some television stations have "business reporters" who might be expected to know a bit more about business than a general news reporter can possibly be expected to know about the broad universe of subjects they are expected to report on from day to day.

Operation Lifesaver deals of course with a limited range of rail related topics -- not financial or strategic -- but it is sad to learn that many news organizations resist dealing with Operation Lifesaver because they regard it as a propagandistic attempt to lobby the news reporters. 

Getting the name of the local railroad wrong is bad reporting to be sure, but when even the local police and government officials misidentify the name of the railroad that goes through their city or town -- perhaps misled by the paint on the last locomotive that they saw at a grade crossing -- it is hard to blame the reporter, or their editor.  And if truth be told railroads used to do quite a bit more to let the world know what their name was and what tracks they owned -- lettering on bridges being just a modest example.

Dave Nelson 

[Bruce Kelly]

I first became aware of the mainstream media's ability to in-accurately report on rail-related subjects following the derailment of the Sunset Limited near Hyder, AZ. The saboteour's use of a jumper wire to bridge the gap between the separated rails in order to maintain continuity for the ABS signals was described in some news accounts as tampering with a "computerized" system, and the train's short roll-over into a dry, sandy creek bed was referred to in one account as a "plunge into a rock-strewn ravine."

But since then, it has been painfully obvious that all manner of transportation topics fall victim to the same sort of mis-informed reporting. (And trust me; I've done my share of same.) I shake my head (and there's been a lot of head-shaking lately) every time they utter the phrase "black box" while showing what is obviously an orange flight data recorder, or refer to planes "sitting on the tarmac" when in fact tarmac is a material used on very, very few of the runways, taxiways, or aprons in modern aviation. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarmac

As for railroads in the news, just this week I felt compelled to respond to a reporter here in northern Idaho who was obviously in way over her head when trying to write about PTC. Link here:

http://eeditions.shoom.com/doc/coeur-d-alene/mining/2015013003/#16

 

What now follows is the email I sent to that author, which I admit is extremely vague and simplistic on some points, but necessarily so when you consider the person I was addressing this to:

 

Julie,

 

I read with great interest your story on PTC in the latest issue of CdA Mining & Timber. Somewhat surprising to learn that there's someone (Dave Gove) right here in Kootenai County who has played a role in developing this technology.

 

Allow me to expand your understanding of PTC with a few nuggets of historical and contemporary info.

 

The November 1999 Metrolink/BNSF collision in Fullerton, CA, was one in a series of such accidents which gradually precipitated government interest in PTC, but it was actually the 2008 collision between a Metrolink commuter train and Union Pacific freight in Chatsworth, CA, which prompted a federal mandate for PTC, known as the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Here are some relevant links:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrolink_%28Southern_California%29#cite_note-71

Scroll down to the list of Major Accidents. Note that the Fullerton incident is not included, as it involved no fatalities.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chatsworth_train_collision

Further detail on the Chatsworth collision, the one which led to the Rail Safety Improvement Act requiring railroads to implement PTC.

 

http://www.metrolinktrains.com/agency/page/title/ptc

Metrolink's explanation of PTC. Scroll down to Why Is It Being Implemented?

 

As for the Lac Megantic accident in 2013, I don't know where in Wikipedia you found the explanation about "....the crew of the freight train becoming incapacitated." In fact, my check of this accident's coverage in Wikipedia pretty much resembles the known facts, that this was a case of a unit crude oil train being parked for the night by a lone engineer, who said he secured the train with the customary application of brakes before he went off duty. Nothing to do with anyone becoming incapacitated. As it turned out, the front locomotive later caught fire, the local fire department shut off all of the train's locomotives in order to stop the flow of fuel, and that in turn shut off the locomotives' air compressors, which led to a loss of pressure in the train's air brake system, ultimately allowing it to roll down a steep grade, derail at high speed, and explode.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster

 

Finally, as for PTC itself, the explanatory quote you attribute to Gove could only have come from him if he himself was directly quoting the lead sentence in the AAR's online explanation of PTC, shown here:

 

https://www.aar.org/policy/positive-train-control

 

Nowhere in any discussion about PTC, whether at the AAR or anywhere else in the rail industry, is there mention of being able to "detect interference such as objects, animals, or people on the tracks." And  in no way is there a "current detection of obstructions on the rails" that uses "an archaic light system that is manned hundreds of miles away."

 

I wonder if perhaps Gove and Phelps were referring to "track occupancy," which is a legitimate phrase in railroading. But it has to do with trains, equipment, and personnel having occupancy of the track in the routine course of their duty. PTC is supposed to aid in keeping train crews, maintenance personnel, and others  precisely aware of each other's position and movement on the track, and to automatically bring movement to a stop when it appears that a collision or other conflict is about to happen.

 

The "archaic light system"  Phelps referred to is probably his way of describing the trackside signals which govern train movement in somewhat the same way that traffic signals govern automobiles at intersections. Well, it's actually more complex than that, if you consider the involvement of dispatchers over some signal systems, the difference between Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) and Automatic Block Signal (ABS), and other forms of railway signaling. These signals do nothing to detect objects, animals, or people on the track. But they are activated by the presence of a train and some other types of railway equipment on the track. 

 

Some segments of railroad where rock slides or avalanches are known to happen have what are know as slide detector fences, essentially a series of vertical poles suspending a network of mesh or wires next to the track, in the path of a potential slide area. If rocks or other debris strike a section of the fence, electronic relays will trigger the signals on either side of that location to turn red, warning approaching trains to stop and contact the dispatcher before proceeding.

 

About the only thing that could possibly detect objects, animals, or people on the track (other than people who are part of railroad operations) in advance of an approaching train would be an incredible number of satellites, aircraft, or drones with equally incredible surveillance and imaging capability to constantly scrutinize more than 140,000 miles of track in the U.S. alone, day and night. If anything like that is what Gove and his company are indeed developing, it's one of the best-kept secrets in railroading, and I would certainly want to hear more from him about that. 

 

And if you or anyone else at the CdA Press ever have any questions about railroading, feel free to contact me. I'm by no means an expert, and will often not have all of the answers at my fingertips. But I could certainly put you in touch with the people who do.

 

Bruce E. Kelly

Contributing Editor

Railway Age

[diningcar]

Bruce, very well done! And hopefully without alienating the writer so that she, and others, may seek you as a source when a railroad related event is to be written about.

[Bruce Kelly]

She responded with not much remorse for her mishandling of the facts, but she did come back later to say that one of their writers for the same company's bi-annual CdA Magazine (link below) would be contacting me for a story they're doing on railroads.

http://eeditions.shoom.com/doc/coeur-d-alene/cdamag/2014112101/#0

Several months ago I made contact with another writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press who occasionally covers local rail topics. It's helped them raise their reporting on crude by rail, coal, etc., to a slightly higher level than what's been presented at other news outlets in my area. But not just because of info I'm able to provide to them; more often it's because of industry contacts or online resources I'm able to put them in touch with.

 

 

[samfp1943]

diningcar

Bruce, very well done! And hopefully without alienating the writer so that she, and others, may seek you as a source when a railroad related event is to be written about.

 

To what Diningcar said about Bruce Kelly's post:      

   Errors in reporting'news' make it apparent  that there is not enough Human 'Editing'  taking place in the publishing cycle of a story these days.            A "Reporter" files their story on a word processor, (and hopes that Spel Czech) will catch their spelling errors, even some of those pesky grammar errors.     While saving their lack of depth in the individual reoprter's knowledge of the 'story' being reported on.

 Many of us have had to suffer enough English Grammar classes, to know that every 'rule' seems to have its exceptions.   Now with computers in the process, the reality of a hands-on human Editor are disappearing as financial decisions overcome pride in the written products.  Machines,'miss' at an accepted rate of failures, while the omissions and comissions of a reporter's story make it out to print, with those failures becoming self-evident to some who have an interest in, or a knowledge of the toipic being covered.  

I think anything that would educate some of the people reporting on specialized industry stories would be very helpful..But I would despair that the average reported would be interested...Now if there was some kind of Program that they could have on their Word Processors to Edit that might be a good thing.

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I suspect that too many reporters have an automatic inbred cynical distrust of any industry 'expert' trying to tell them the facts as instead being an attempt or motivation to 'spin' or slant the story in a way more favorable to the subject industry.  They've been conditioned by too many "intrepid journalist vs. big, bad, corp." stories, books, movies, and TV shows to recognize that not everyone has that kind of motivation or agenda, but instead is merely trying to facilitate accurate reporting and informed context, etc.

- Paul North.     

[tree68]

I was interviewed a while back (by phone) about an incident in this area.  Obviously I wasn't speaking for the railroad involved, as I don't work for them.  What I did was give general information regarding daily operations, saving them the task of coming up with their own conclusions (which probably would have been wrong).  I had nothing to spin, so that probably wasn't a consideration.  

[mudchicken]

ChuckCobleigh

 

trackrat888

...media professional worker...

 

 

Often an oxymoron.

 

Why do they get a promotion into a caste that they can't earn and can still classify others as mere classless/unskilled peasants beneath them?

[schlimm]

Regarding the press as the enemy or with contempt is suggestive of a seige mentality.  Sure they make mistakes, but would you prefer that the "news" consist solely of PR releases by corporations, organizations and that big, bad wolf some here call the government?

[Norm48327]

Reporting should be fair, unbiased, and as accurate as is possible. In keeping with the constitution, it should also be free of government interference. Most media today are not living up to their responsibility. Nuff said.

[tree68]

schlimm

Regarding the press as the enemy or with contempt is suggestive of a seige mentality.

We get this in the fire service.  More than a few chiefs have tried to make life as difficult as possible for the press, even feeling (or hoping) that they can keep the press further away from the scene than the general public.   That, of course, isn't the case - any place the general public can go, the press can go.

Nowadays, the yellow tape goes up early in the incident.

Few of that ilk seem to realize that the press can make us look good as well as bad.  Embrace them, help them get the pictures they want, and use them to send messages to the public (smoke detectors save lives!). 

There have been cases of fire, and police, officials badgering photographers who were standing in public spaces taking pictures of an incident.  Sound familiar?

Public information relations is important enough to warrant regular columns in major fire service publications and for fire departments to run "mini fire academies" to orient the press to how we operate. 

 

[Bruce Kelly]

To be fair, some of us in the rail mag business, whether full-time staff members under the company roof, or mere part-time contributors doing their share from home or the road, could stand to get a wee bit of our own glass houses in order before casting stones at others.

I can personally attest to having once described peas coming out of eastern Washington's Palouse region in refrigerator cars because I didn't bother to look and learn that the business actually involved dried peas that are sacked and shipped in boxcars. (As opposed to peas and other veggies that are shipped from other parts of eastern WA cooked and processed, canned and frozen.)

And then there was the time I could not get anyone at the GNHS in Wenatchee to answer my inquiries about the date of GN's realignment and tunnel construction at Trinidad Loop, and I resorted to historic USGS maps on file in the Northwest archive room at the Spokane Library. Those maps, based on their dates, indicated that the line change occured somewhere during 1930-40, and that's what I ran with. After the story was published, someone from the Seattle chapter of the GNHS provided evidence that the line changes around Trinidad Loop actually took place during 1899-1905.

Lessons like that have since prompted me to dig deeper into original and more reliable source material, and to avoid submitting anything for publication that cannot be verified beyond a shadow of a doubt. Or so I try.

I still cringe when I see experienced rail writers and editors botch placenames in their cab ride tales, or describe a route or region as being heavy with one commodity or another but totally miss the even larger product line it carries, or set about to map a famous mountain pass and put all sorts of well-known, highly-documented, and easily verifiable elements way out of position, if not including elements that don't even exist.

It often comes down to familiarity with the subject matter. An author in the West can submit a piece that appropriately mentions SP's ice decks, only to have an editor in some other part of the country alter it to read "ice docks." (Trust me; it happened.) And I've lost track of how many maps a certain magazine continued to publish over the years that showed BN and BNSF using the ex-GN main line between Sandpoint and Spokane, decades after that route had been closed to through traffic. And then there was that book containing a picture of NP's famous S-shaped trestle on Lookout Pass near the ID/MT border, with the caption saying it was a train on the line to Coeur d'Alene, an error induced by the fact that the original photo was labeled as being on the Coeur d'Alene Branch (which was true) and the author or caption writer not being aware that what NP originally referred to as its Coeur d'Alene Branch was a line reaching into the mining district of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains and not into Coeur d'Alene itself.

But such things are trivial compared to the bigger and more impactful subjects that mainstream media are often having to deal with when they report on railroads. So if anyone from the world of rail journalism is going to attempt to educate the broader masses, we should remember to educate ourselves a bit more as well. And I definitely include myself among those who could use some further learning about the many varied aspects of this industry.

[tree68]

Bruce - Much of what you describe kinda falls into the "rivet counter" realm.  The rail business is indeed multi-faceted, and someone with expertise in operations may be totally lost when it comes to sales (ie, what's in which cars).  

Most of us on "this" side of railroading understand, and as you said, have probably made similar mistakes.  Generally, when corrected, we take it as a lesson learned and move on.

The errors of fact and/or conclusion one sees in the general press are usually more basic.  We can forgive them for not knowing what's in a boxcar or container, but if they can't tell the difference between the two, we take exception.

I can't tell you how many times I've been conductor on our trains (in uniform) when parents have pointed me out to the kids and told them that "that's the conductor - he drives the train..."

They simply have no clue.  And that very thing shows up in news stories day in and day out - there is a railroad incident and the news report refers to "two conductors" or "the conductor who was driving the train."

We have the same problem in the fire service...  

You wouldn't believe how many firefighters take exception to being referred to in the press as "first responders..."