Murphy Siding You have now solved the mystery of how this happened by assigning what was going through the engineer's mind and drawing your own conclusions based on the thoughts you are projecting there. If someone puts different thoughts into the mind of the engineer, would you then have to admit that you were wrong?Dunce
Not only an expert on train handling, but now also telepathic.
Have to love this forum at times.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Murphy Siding Euclid Let me clarify that point. I think we both agree that he was lost. Here and elsewhere I hear people blaming Amtrak for not teaching him the details of the route. Without those details a person would be "lost" in terms of knowing those route landmarks and details. But he did know where the curve was located in terms of milepost locations. So it was possible for him to navigate exclusively by mileposts withouth any knowledge of other route landmarks. Apparentely he was navigating by mileposts. The skill of navigating by mileposts is separate from the skill and knowledge of learning the route. He did not have the latter, so he was relying on the former. As an engineer since 2014, he should have had plenty of time to acquire the skill of navigating by mileposts. Yet his failed to sucessfully navigate by mileposts, and that is what caused this disaster. That is why I said the following in the above quote: "The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point." The point I am referring to is that he lacked the ability to navigate by mileposts even though he relied on that as an alternative to navigating by route landmark and feature familiarity. Maybe Amtrak never trained him in navigating by mileposts in addition to not teaching him the route, but the two issues are entirely separate. Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember what it was like when a record skipped on the turntable. You have now solved the mystery of how this happened by assigning what was going through the engineer's mind and drawing your own conclusions based on the thoughts you are projecting there. If someone puts different thoughts into the mind of the engineer, would you then have to admit that you were wrong?
Euclid Let me clarify that point. I think we both agree that he was lost. Here and elsewhere I hear people blaming Amtrak for not teaching him the details of the route. Without those details a person would be "lost" in terms of knowing those route landmarks and details. But he did know where the curve was located in terms of milepost locations. So it was possible for him to navigate exclusively by mileposts withouth any knowledge of other route landmarks. Apparentely he was navigating by mileposts. The skill of navigating by mileposts is separate from the skill and knowledge of learning the route. He did not have the latter, so he was relying on the former. As an engineer since 2014, he should have had plenty of time to acquire the skill of navigating by mileposts. Yet his failed to sucessfully navigate by mileposts, and that is what caused this disaster. That is why I said the following in the above quote: "The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point." The point I am referring to is that he lacked the ability to navigate by mileposts even though he relied on that as an alternative to navigating by route landmark and feature familiarity. Maybe Amtrak never trained him in navigating by mileposts in addition to not teaching him the route, but the two issues are entirely separate.
Let me clarify that point. I think we both agree that he was lost. Here and elsewhere I hear people blaming Amtrak for not teaching him the details of the route. Without those details a person would be "lost" in terms of knowing those route landmarks and details.
But he did know where the curve was located in terms of milepost locations. So it was possible for him to navigate exclusively by mileposts withouth any knowledge of other route landmarks. Apparentely he was navigating by mileposts.
The skill of navigating by mileposts is separate from the skill and knowledge of learning the route. He did not have the latter, so he was relying on the former.
As an engineer since 2014, he should have had plenty of time to acquire the skill of navigating by mileposts. Yet his failed to sucessfully navigate by mileposts, and that is what caused this disaster. That is why I said the following in the above quote:
"The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point."
The point I am referring to is that he lacked the ability to navigate by mileposts even though he relied on that as an alternative to navigating by route landmark and feature familiarity.
Maybe Amtrak never trained him in navigating by mileposts in addition to not teaching him the route, but the two issues are entirely separate.
Raise your hand if you're old enough to remember what it was like when a record skipped on the turntable.
You have now solved the mystery of how this happened by assigning what was going through the engineer's mind and drawing your own conclusions based on the thoughts you are projecting there. If someone puts different thoughts into the mind of the engineer, would you then have to admit that you were wrong?
Rather than getting your pants in a bunch over me repeating the phase, “navigating by milepost,” why don’t you spend your energy on understanding my meaning?
Here is what Balt said, and I agree 100% with his points here. I think I am saying about the same thing that Balt said. So why are you not jumping on his case like you jump on mine? Balt has “internal alarm clocks” going off in the minds of engineers. Balt says this Amtrak engineer was not only lost on mileposts, but was also lost in his “mind’s time clock.”
Balt said this:
As a 'experienced' engineer, if he noted MP 16 & MP 17 - a internal 'alarm clock' should have gone off looking for MP 18 and if it wasn't seen in the amount of time it took to get to MP 19 (which he also did not see) he should have felt he missed something and taken the appropriate actions. Experienced engineers have the sense of time and movement. What happened in this instance is beyond being lost - not only was he lost on mile post, he was lost in his minds time clock. Einstein postulates about 'space time'; Engineers live in the world of 'movement time'.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
EuclidLet me clarify that point. I think we both agree that he was lost. Here and elsewhere I hear people blaming Amtrak for not teaching him the details of the route. Without those details a person would be "lost" in terms of knowing those route landmarks and details. But he did know where the curve was located in terms of milepost locations. So it was possible for him to navigate exclusively by mileposts withouth any knowledge of other route landmarks. Apparentely he was navigating by mileposts. The skill of navigating by mileposts is separate from the skill and knowledge of learning the route. He did not have the latter, so he was relying on the former. As an engineer since 2014, he should have had plenty of time to acquire the skill of navigating by mileposts. Yet his failed to sucessfully navigate by mileposts, and that is what caused this disaster. That is why I said the following in the above quote: "The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point." The point I am referring to is that he lacked the ability to navigate by mileposts even though he relied on that as an alternative to navigating by route landmark and feature familiarity. Maybe Amtrak never trained him in navigating by mileposts in addition to not teaching him the route, but the two issues are entirely separate.
wow. You make it painfully obvious that you never had to qualify on a route as an engineer (well, we all knew that anyhow). Your whole argument is so mind boggling rediculous that I almost think it's satire. I pity anyone (if there is anyone) who takes anything you say seriously.
Just wow.
VOLKER LANDWEHR Euclid The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. Remember? You asked: The mystery is how someone with that much responsibility could just suddenly get lost, and more importantly, not know he was lost. I gave a possible answer. When it is beside the point why ask? Regards, Volker
Euclid The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point.
Remember? You asked: The mystery is how someone with that much responsibility could just suddenly get lost, and more importantly, not know he was lost.
I gave a possible answer. When it is beside the point why ask?
oltmannd You missed my "mea culpa" a few pages back, so mea culpa!
You missed my "mea culpa" a few pages back, so mea culpa!
I believe the term you might consider using is "mea maxima culpa". It pretty much means what it looks like it means.
I always wondered at the purpose of a young lad like myself attending church. Now I know.
Or you could wimp out and use "mea culpa, etiam atque etiam".
Ed
BigJim oltmannd If you want to do straight dynamic to slow a train, you have to bunch the slack first. Smoothest way is with a bit of independent. No, as has been said before, that is not how it is done! I wonder where you got that piece of nonsense?
oltmannd If you want to do straight dynamic to slow a train, you have to bunch the slack first. Smoothest way is with a bit of independent.
No, as has been said before, that is not how it is done! I wonder where you got that piece of nonsense?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndIf you want to do straight dynamic to slow a train, you have to bunch the slack first. Smoothest way is with a bit of independent.
.
Overmod Ames' presentation
Ames' presentation
Ames' absentation
https://books.google.com/books?id=owjWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA6038&dq=%22+major+azel+ames+is+unable+to%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8gPi92IXZAhWJY98KHWMjCqcQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%22%20major%20azel%20ames%20is%20unable%20to%22&f=true
I replied to Euclid's proposition that the engineer knew he was lost but didn't react accordingly. The extract from the NTSF press release shows, in my opinion, he realized it only at the curve. Thats all I wanted to show.
That it shouldn't have happened is no question. Interesting are the reasons why it happened to him. Hopefully we will get them with NTSB's final report if ever.
Add to Overmod's description of the engineer's inexperience the brand new locomotive. How familiar was he with beyond the essential. New equipment tends produce alarms which often are meaningless. Nevertheless they can distract.
Just one example for distracting event.
Has it happened? It might but without knowledge it is speculation.Regards, Volker
BaltACDExperienced engineers have the sense of time and movement. What happened in this instance is beyond being lost - not only was he lost on mile post, he was lost in his minds time clock.
This sort of thing happens distressingly often, not only in the 'time domain' but also with regard to procedural safety. One of the most horrible 'malpractice' cases I know (involving glutaraldehyde at Bascom Palmer Eye Hospital, if you want to look it up) involved a string of events at least as long and cumulatively unfortunate as the events at Lac Megantic; the point being that at no point did individual action rise to the point of recognizing the upcoming disaster.
Here, you clearly have an 'inexperienced engineer', and whether or not he uses the strategy of throwing the training company under the bus to excuse his inexperience, he evidently had only the rudiments of conscious foreground recognition of the kind of movement time you're describing.
An alternative and somewhat extreme example of movement-time awareness could be seen in the Victorian era, where reports of engineers running expresses at 60mph on relatively short headways in 20-foot-visibility pea-soup fogs could be had. When I was young, I wondered how the engineers could see so well when everyone else couldn't -- then I realized they were running off a very well honed sense of route awareness on a dependably closed ROW subject to strict rule working, and were still taking an awful chance by modern standards.
Is it really fair to expect this level of competence from someone who is essentially a new hire, whose experience of route familiarization six weeks prior might have been learning the streets and turns to a child's new school or new business location? That's a far different haptic sense in the short run than familiarization with a railroad route has to be.
VOLKER LANDWEHR The engineer said that he recalls the speed at MP15.5 with 79 mph, he saw MP16 and 17 but didn't recall seeing MP18 or the 30 mph advance speed sign. He saw the wayside signal at MP19.8 but mistook for it for one further north. As soon as he saw the 30 mph sign he applied the brakes. https://ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/mr20180125.aspx My conclusion: He was lost and found back into reality at the 30 mph sign at the curve.
The engineer said that he recalls the speed at MP15.5 with 79 mph, he saw MP16 and 17 but didn't recall seeing MP18 or the 30 mph advance speed sign. He saw the wayside signal at MP19.8 but mistook for it for one further north. As soon as he saw the 30 mph sign he applied the brakes.
https://ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/mr20180125.aspx
My conclusion: He was lost and found back into reality at the 30 mph sign at the curve.
I WAS COMPOSING THE LOWER WHILE THE PREVIOUS WAS BEING POSTED. IT SAYS MUCH THE SAME, BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY.
The engineer knew he was going 79 mph at MP 15.5.
He knew he was going 79 mph later, since he did not brake.
He knew there was a curve at MP 19.8, because he had studied the route.
He knew he passed MP16 and MP17.
At MP17, he knew he had 2.8 miles to slow for the curve he knew about.
At the speed he was traveling, he would be at the curve in 126 seconds when leaving MP17.
At what point in those 126 seconds should he have been wondering what happened to MP18 (which should have shown itself 45 seconds after MP17)?
For the engineers here, approximately when/where should he have started braking to enter the curve at 30 MPH?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The thing that strikes me about the NTSB investigation to date is that NTSB still hasn't released a complete description of what the locomotive cameras and audios recorded. From what I've seen, we've been told only that the inward facing camera and audio show that the crew wasn't using personal electronic devices, and that the crew was bracing themselves for a few seconds in advance of the impact. Now, I can certainly understand that NTSB wouldn't want to issue any speculation about the cause of the accident at this stage of the investigation. But why hold back a stricty factual description about what's on the recordings? I suspect there's a reason but, of course, I don't know this as a fact.
EuclidThe fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point.
EuclidThe point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed.
Perhaps you should re-read the NTSB press release. No word that the engineer was lost especially not by him.
Nowhere in rules is a timeframe given within which you have to discover your are lost.
He was lost and realized where he really was directly at the curve too late to do what demand.Regards, Volker
wanswheelI guess the automatic stop couldn't happen if the engineer decided against it.
This is little different from the action of other types of ATS that included, for example, forestallers under engineer control. Comparatively few systems appear to have been designed to protect against malicious or determinedly irresponsible engineman action in this regard, and those that do will often conflate punishments for 'violation' of signaling with simply stopping the train safely when a true stop signal is passed.
Mike, can you find the actual text of Ames' presentation? It was difficult to find back in the day and it is valuable in part because it is missing what proved to be an important concern in ATC, the fact that the 'non-automatic' step in his long listing of automated steps is not a binary control input but often needs to be a complex response over time. This was a major unrecognized issue with New Jersey Transit's version of PTC in the '80s, for instance.
Note that nowhere in these discussions do you see detailed coverage of shutting off steam to locomotives when a system triggers a 'braking event' (I use jargonesque language intentionally to make a point). This is "as" amenable to autonomic control in the Ames breakdown as brake application is, but likewise just as complicatedly time-variant and potentially hazardous if 'done wrong'.
There was another 'automation' shown reasonably practical right around this time (demonstrators running in 1922): automatic cutoff control derived from backpressure management. We have some of the references in older threads here, and Mike might want to find the links to them; this was a useful feature to automate for functional ATS (as it could center the reverser on long-lap valves as easily as follow control signals) and goes a long way toward implementing an extension into ATC with running speed control involving physical enforcement of running speed reductions without modally applying brakes to a stop as penalty systems did.
Euclid I don’t think anybody expects an engineer to never get lost. But what is expected is that if they get lost, they realize they are lost. And with that realization, they must immediately slow to restricted speed. That is what is expected and demanded of an engineer. The engineer of #501 did not slow the train during the time he was lost. So, he either did not realize he was lost; or was in denial that he was lost; or was embarrassed, and just hoping that he would soon discover where he was. None of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed.
I don’t think anybody expects an engineer to never get lost. But what is expected is that if they get lost, they realize they are lost. And with that realization, they must immediately slow to restricted speed. That is what is expected and demanded of an engineer.
The engineer of #501 did not slow the train during the time he was lost. So, he either did not realize he was lost; or was in denial that he was lost; or was embarrassed, and just hoping that he would soon discover where he was.
None of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed.
LithoniaOperator zugmann Euclid None of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed. You don't know what happened. No matter how much you pretend you do . I tend to agree with you, zugmann.
zugmann Euclid None of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed. You don't know what happened. No matter how much you pretend you do .
Euclid None of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed.
You don't know what happened. No matter how much you pretend you do .
I tend to agree with you, zugmann.
I am not pretending anything. Open your eyes and read what the NTSB has told us.
Euclid does speculate, and to a point that is OK, but he keeps pushing his personal agenda. He needs a long 'time out'.
Norm
Still in training.
Murphy Siding 243129 243129- You speak as if you are a retired engineer perhaps? Were you ever involved in training new engineers and conductors? yes I am a retired engineer. I trained firemen to be engineers. Thanks. Were you a passenger or freight engineer?
243129 243129- You speak as if you are a retired engineer perhaps? Were you ever involved in training new engineers and conductors? yes I am a retired engineer. I trained firemen to be engineers.
243129- You speak as if you are a retired engineer perhaps? Were you ever involved in training new engineers and conductors?
yes I am a retired engineer. I trained firemen to be engineers.
Thanks. Were you a passenger or freight engineer?
Freight, passenger and high speed on the NEC.
EuclidNone of those excuses are acceptable. The fact that he had not made enough student trips to familiarize himself with the route is completely beside the point. The point is that he knew he was lost and decided to take a chance and run blind at full speed.
Now confirmed that the Wisconsin Talgos will be coming on a temporary lease.
VOLKER LANDWEHR what do the three excerpts show
what do the three excerpts show
I guess the automatic stop couldn't happen if the engineer decided against it.
@wanswheel. Thanks again
On the other hand what do the three excerpts show other than that the "Railway Signaling and Communications" Vol 15 contains information about the Miller system?
I don't have access to it.Regards, Volker
LithoniaOperatorWhatever brake application he made (or not) seems pretty academic at this point, to me.
I think you are right. Whatever the engineer would have done, it was too late.
On the other hand it would interest me if there are differing brake handling rules for the Cascade Talgo trains. The talgo trucks have two hydralic brake disks on each wheel and almost no slack so they are very different compared to standard passenger cars.Regards, Volker
VOLKER LANDWEHR There is no visual or audible signal
There is no visual or audible signal
https://books.google.com/books?id=2JnmAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Railway+Signaling+and+Communications,+Volume+15%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi578zM84LZAhXKmuAKHaYqA-EQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
EuclidThe mystery is how someone with that much responsibility could just suddenly get lost, and more importantly, not know he was lost.
As I unterstood the NTSB press release The engineer had on southbound run at the throttle before. And the accident happened in the dark.
I would need more than one run at speed to get familiar with way marks. So if you miss, for whatever reasons, the speed limit advance sign and the milepost one might be lost with this limited experience.Regards, Volker
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