BaltACDSecond you have to expect employees to comply with the most basic of rules.
Poor training.
The reality of ANY situation - you don't have all the Supervision you may think you need. Second you have to expect employees to comply with the most basic of rules.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
You are more of an expert than I am as to how to most effectively increase supervision. You are noting that EHH effectively reduced supervision, and I am simply agreeing with you that this reduction may, not absolutely certain, but may have contributed to the accident.
daveklepperAnd supervision should have been doubled for the de-activation of a reliable safety system in advance of its replacement by PTC.
Where do you place your doubled supervision? Every Main Line train? Every road switcher operating? How many supervisors is doubled supervision?
This happened on the EHH version of CSX, wherein he reduced supervision in multiple categories.
Fortunately, I never worked on the EHH version of CSX.
And supervision should have been doubled for the de-activation of a reliable safety system in advance of its replacement by PTC.
BaltACD 243129 BaltACD Total man failure incident by the switcher crew; no excuses for their failures. Yes there is. Poor vetting, poor training, poor supervision. Those may be reasons - they are not excuses.
243129 BaltACD Total man failure incident by the switcher crew; no excuses for their failures. Yes there is. Poor vetting, poor training, poor supervision.
BaltACD Total man failure incident by the switcher crew; no excuses for their failures.
Yes there is. Poor vetting, poor training, poor supervision.
Those may be reasons - they are not excuses.
Those are reasons. A properly vetted prospective employee would have possessed the common sense to double check their actions when questioned. A properly trained employee would have followed the designated procedure for that action. Supervision should have been able to detect that the employee was deficient in railroad operations procedures.
NP EddieBalt: I believe you said that EHH got rid of all the local trainmasters and RFE. If that is true, who is supervising the train and engine crews?
I believe you said that EHH got rid of all the local trainmasters and RFE. If that is true, who is supervising the train and engine crews?
To my knowledge EHH 'surplused' the RFE's. The Trainmaster's remained, and I believe were expected to perform 'double duty' - despite many (most) of them never having been qualified Engineers.
Balt:
BaltACDTotal man failure incident by the switcher crew; no excuses for their failures.
No doubt the individuals will be sued: that is a drop in the bucket.
Under deep pockets, CSX will be sued, and they'll be paying plenty.
I suspect there will be diligent efforts to assign some percent of the blame, no matter how slight, on Amtrak, so further deep-pockets can go after the $225 million capped insurance available there. But I suspect CSX, whether wholly or partially self-insured in these matters, will be paying for most of the awards or settlements, and most of the probably fabulously lavish fees and costs. Not very much legal cleverness or time are going to be required to establish liability in civil actions, which is where the real 'action' as it were is going to be. Look for criminal penalties on the workers, and perhaps on the railroad (if there are some undocumented foibles in their government-related paperwork for strict scrutiny to find and for politically-astute lawyers to find, publicize, and exploit in not-necessarily-related ways to establish a perception of relevant guilt) but those aren't really meaningful in any justice-related or safety-enhancing sense, and certainly are a drop in the bucket compared to the civil settlements to come.
Total man failure incident by the switcher crew; no excuses for their failures.
I have no idea how or how much the liability issues will be adjudicated; I doubt that it will be in CSX's favor. In the US anybody can sue anybody else for any reason they can think of - whether it will ever make it to Court is another matter entirely.
I have read and re-read this NTSB report three times. The signal system was suspended for cut-over to PTC on that part of the CSX. The conductor and engineer failed to restore the silica spur switch to normal (Main Track to Main Track) position and the AMTRAK train headed into the spur and collided with a standing CSX train. The AMTRAK conductor (on the locomotive) and the AMTRAK engineer were killed.
Both CSX crew members were fired for their part of the this terrible accident.
Regarding liability, could the family members of the AMTRAK employees killed sue the CSX for damages? What about the injured AMTRAK passengers?
The NTSB blamed the CSX for their part of this tragedy.
I am interested in what Balt has to say about this. I did not find another blogs about this accident.
Ed Burns
Retired Clerk from Northtown-Minneapolis.
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