BaltACD 243129 does any carrier have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer - to your satisfaction. Are you so qualfied?
243129 does any carrier have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer - to your satisfaction. Are you so qualfied?
I speak only of that where I am familiar. Amtrak does not.
Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
243129 charlie hebdo If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following. 1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct? 2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking. 3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct? 4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient? 5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info? 6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment? 7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter. #1 Not sure. #2 One would assume so. #3 Amtrak does not have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. #4 We do not. #5 See #3 #6 See #3 #7 Cannot discern the meaning of#7. Expound.
charlie hebdo If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following. 1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct? 2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking. 3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct? 4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient? 5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info? 6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment? 7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter.
If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following.
1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct?
2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking.
3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct?
4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient?
5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info?
6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment?
7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter.
#1 Not sure.
#2 One would assume so.
#3 Amtrak does not have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
#4 We do not.
#5 See #3
#6 See #3
#7 Cannot discern the meaning of#7. Expound.
I assume that the meaning of #7 is that the engineer may have had some type of mental impairment that training could not have remedied. I suppose the same type of issue would apply to the personality traits that are desirable or undesirable. Training may be able to modify these traits, but some of them may be beyond the ability of training to modify.
So with the issue of #7, the effective role of testing and training may be to screen out certain candidates rather than to train them.
243129 charlie hebdo If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following. 1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct? 2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking. 3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct? 4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient? 5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info? 6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment? 7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter. #1 Not sure. #2 One would assume so. #3 Amtrak does not have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. #4 We do not. #5 See #3 #6 See #3 #7 Cannot discern the meaning of#7. Expound. Question: You have referred to Fred Frailey as Fred "Hidden Agenda" Frailey. Could you expound on that also?
Question: You have referred to Fred Frailey as Fred "Hidden Agenda" Frailey. Could you expound on that also?
Please re-read my post, specifically #3. It is simply a decision/logic tree. #7 says this: If the engineer either was not screened to see if he had sufficient mental acumen (likely) or lacked that (unlikely) or that he had some type of serious memory problem, then all the best training in the world would not matter.
As to FF, I have noticed an agenda lurking (in other words, not explicitly stated) in his articles. This is not unusual in syndicated columns, etc. IMO (strictly a personal view), he is very anti-Amtrak and uses whatever and whoever he can to advance that agenda.
Euclid I assume that the meaning of #7 is that the engineer may have had some type of mental impairment that training could not have remedied. I suppose the same type of issue would apply to the personality traits that are desirable or undesirable. Training may be able to modify these traits, but some of them may be beyond the ability of training to modify. So with the issue of #7, the effective role of testing and training may be to screen out certain candidates rather than to train them.
True. It seems to me, that Amtrak (and possibly freight railroads) have got things a** backwards. Screen properly at the beginning for cognitive abilities needed for the job, cognitive impairments of attention and memory, and character issues. Training is an expensive investment and might miss critical factors in which the training personnel (whoever they are) are not likely to have any expertise. Simply promoting other operating personnel to become engineer trainees would likely miss spotting these deficiencies.
charlie hebdo 243129 charlie hebdo If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following. 1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct? 2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking. 3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct? 4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient? 5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info? 6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment? 7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter. #1 Not sure. #2 One would assume so. #3 Amtrak does not have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. #4 We do not. #5 See #3 #6 See #3 #7 Cannot discern the meaning of#7. Expound. Question: You have referred to Fred Frailey as Fred "Hidden Agenda" Frailey. Could you expound on that also? Please re-read my post, specifically #3. It is simply a decision/logic tree. #7 says this: If the engineer either was not screened to see if he had sufficient mental acumen (likely) or lacked that (unlikely) or that he had some type of serious memory problem, then all the best training in the world would not matter. As to FF, I have noticed an agenda lurking (in other words, not explicitly stated) in his articles. This is not unusual in syndicated columns, etc. IMO (strictly a personal view), he is very anti-Amtrak and uses whatever and whoever he can to advance that agenda.
We do not know the answers to #1 & #3 do we?
He was hired by Amtrak as a conductor was he not?
Euclid 243129 charlie hebdo If “full service and blended 7” application. is NOT equal to an Emergency Application on the Siemens loco or any other type he had used, then what strikes me are the following. 1. The engineer was employed previously in the same role on BNSF, correct? 2. He must have been exposed to the information about brake applications earlier (training, operating manual) and had extensive "hands on" experience with braking. 3. He was hired by Amtrak as an experienced engineer, correct? 4. If he had worked at BNSF, do we know what their training is? Good, adequate or deficient? 5. Was this man ever screened/evaluated at promotion to engineer on BNSF or by Amtrak to determine if he possessed suffiecient cognitive ability to learn and remember important info? 6. If #5 is true, then is it possible this man had some sort of memory impairment? 7. If either #6 is true or #5 is false, then all the training in the world would not matter. #1 Not sure. #2 One would assume so. #3 Amtrak does not have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. #4 We do not. #5 See #3 #6 See #3 #7 Cannot discern the meaning of#7. Expound. I assume that the meaning of #7 is that the engineer may have had some type of mental impairment that training could not have remedied. I suppose the same type of issue would apply to the personality traits that are desirable or undesirable. Training may be able to modify these traits, but some of them may be beyond the ability of training to modify. So with the issue of #7, the effective role of testing and training may be to screen out certain candidates rather than to train them.
I believe he was hired by Amtrak as an assistant conductor and was promoted to conductor. Why could those personality traits not be discovered prior to his hiring as a locomotive engineer?
I will answer the question. BECAUSE AMTRAK DOES NOT HAVE THE PERSONNEL QUALIFIED TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT A CANDIDATE POSSESSES THE ACUMEN FOR THE POSITION OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER!
Oh yes, I agree that Amtrak may not have been qualified to screen their applicants or train them. My only point overall is that training may not be the entire answer. Screening for problems that training cannot overcome, and then rejecting those candidates would be as essential as properly training the ones hired.
There has been a lot of focus on the idea that the engineer got lost because he did not know the territory. But this revelation that he did not use full braking effort when a derailment was certain is entirely separate from the issue of not knowing the territory. Not knowing the territory speaks only to not being fully trained for the new route after being a qualified engineer for several years. But this inadequate braking in the face of an all-out emergency speaks to his entire career and qualifications overall.
In my opinion, this engineer should not have been employed as such.
243129Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
And what qualified person judged you to determine whether you have the acumen to judge others? Who watches the watchers?
So you were an engineer. Lots of others were/are, too. What sets you apart to make you know when someone will make a good candidate? Just because you ran a locomotive, or typed up a few messages to the media doesn't make you a HR hiring specialist. Do you have experience or training above and beyond being in engine service?
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
243129 BaltACD 243129 does any carrier have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer - to your satisfaction. Are you so qualfied? I speak only of that where I am familiar. Amtrak does not. Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
So you are the ONLY person on the face of the Earth qualified to pronounce judgement on the acumen of Amtrak locomotive engineers. Rich!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Euclid In my opinion, this engineer should not have been employed as such.
BINGO!
BaltACD 243129 BaltACD 243129 does any carrier have personnel qualified to assess a candidate's acumen for the position of locomotive engineer - to your satisfaction. Are you so qualfied? I speak only of that where I am familiar. Amtrak does not. Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. So you are the ONLY person on the face of the Earth qualified to pronounce judgement on the acumen of Amtrak locomotive engineers. Rich!
Where do I say that? That is your spin.
Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here.
243129 Euclid In my opinion, this engineer should not have been employed as such. BINGO!
Perhaps a look into the PRIIA 305 specification and preceeding recommendations sheds some light of his brake assumptions.
From Specification Recommendations For Procurement of Passenger Locomotives 2010:
http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Documents/PRIIA%20305%20DocSpec%20and%20other%20NGEC%20Documents/Locomotive%20PRIIA%20305%20Spec%202010%20Draft%20Rev2.doc
· Full-service, air-only braking shall not be less than 1.3 MPHPS
· Emergency, air-only braking shall not be less than 1.6 MPHPS
· Full-service, blended braking shall not be less than 1.6 MPHPS
· Emergency, blended braking shall not be less than 2.0 MPHPS
· Air-only brake shall be used below 5 mph, and immediate motoring shall be available to engineman between 0-5 mph
· Blended brake shall be available when throttle is in idle
· Pneumatic priority shall be given in emergency and dynamic priority on service-rate applications, pneumatic brake shall be fail safe against loss of dynamic brake
· Wheel slide detection/correction shall be in conjunction with dynamic and pneumatic brake during blending
· Brake Cylinder Pressure (B.C.P.) shall be limited to emergency maximum when independent brake valve is applied during blending
Final specification is different:http://www.idot.illinois.gov/Assets/uploads/files/Doing-Business/RFP/Multi-State-locomotive/PRIIA%20Locomotive%20Spec%20305-005%20Rev%20A%20-%202012jul10.pdf
On page 104 are the performance criteria. Sorry no copy and paste possible. So in short:
Full-service, air only for a single locomotive from 125 mph, the stopping distance shall be no more than 9,000 ftEmergency, air only for a single locomotive from 125 mph, the stopping distance shall be no more than 8,000 ft
There is no large margin between full-service and air-only required. And according to the preceeding recommendations, air-only emergency and blended full service would have provided the same decelleration of 1.6 mph/sec
What ever it is worth.Regards, Volker
Edit: I tried to reactive my physics knowledge: Stopping distance of 9,000 ft from 125 mph needs a deceleration of 1.27 mph/sec; stopping distance of 8,000 ft from 125 mph needs 1.43 mph/sec deceleration.
243129Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here.
I have never assumed 'alpha dog' status - thank you for conveying it, however, I must decline. I have only been a grunt, a grunt that got the opportunity to participate in many aspects of railroad operation on many different levels. In 51+ years service in many different areas you do learn things and see things and come to realize how interlocked many things are and what it takes to explain those things.
rdamon 243129 Euclid In my opinion, this engineer should not have been employed as such. BINGO! Was it the decision to employ him, or the decision not to properly train and qualify him?
EuclidIn my opinion, this person should not have been hired because I believe he has personality traits that would be difficult or impossible to remove by training. I believe this undesirable trait caused him to cause the crash.
I'm astonished. We have discussed that hiring and judging characters can be quite difficult. But you only need just the cab talk before the accident and the interview to a verdict.Regards, Volker
AFAIK, the engineer was 55 years old. He was hired by Amtrak in 2004, worked as a conductor until 2013, promoted to engineer at that time and worked in that capacity until the accident. So he had ~4 years experince as an engineer, but had only had hands-on experience on the new ~8 mile stretch twice. What was he doing prior to Amtrak, when he was 41? With four years experience, he would hardly be a novice.
VOLKER LANDWEHR Euclid In my opinion, this person should not have been hired because I believe he has personality traits that would be difficult or impossible to remove by training. I believe this undesirable trait caused him to cause the crash. I'm astonished. We have discussed that hiring and judging characters can be quite difficult. But you only need just the cab talk before the accident and the interview to a verdict.Regards, Volker
Euclid In my opinion, this person should not have been hired because I believe he has personality traits that would be difficult or impossible to remove by training. I believe this undesirable trait caused him to cause the crash.
It is premature to conclude to that. But reading the transcript from the cab, he does seem rather less than conscientious in his attitude, at least in that sample on the job.
Thinking this through, it seems quite certain that the crash was caused by the engineer's not realizing he needed to slow down well in advance of the 30 mph curve. Whether his failure to do so was a result of a personality issue, a cognitive vigilance deficit, or a lack of situational awareness because of poor training remains to be seen.
Job candidates get rejected every day based on mere hunches on the part of the hiring manager who could not care less about jumping to a premature conclusion. Based on what I can see, I would not have hired him.
When I read his discussions in the cab about how he accepts the ease of getting lost, read that he thought he had a good plan to find the curve, read about his failure to use maximum braking, and read that his last comment before leaving the rails was, "Aw, we're dead," I get the impression of somone who is hapless.
I don't believe that haplessness is something that is thrust onto people from outside. I believe that where haplessness is a trait, it is brought about by the person who possesses that trait. I believe that the motive for a person to cultivate their own bad luck is to turn themselves into a victim for some sort of resulting sense of indentity or empowerment.
charlie hebdoIt is premature to conclude to that. But reading the transcript from the cab, he does seem rather less than conscientious in his attitude, at least in that sample on the job.
I think that makes it even more difficult to judge. Usually he is alone in the cab, not accompanied and distracted by a trainee conductor.Regards, Volker
P.S.: Before Amtrak he worked for an Airline
EuclidWhen I read his discussions in the cab about how he accepts the ease of getting lost, read that he thought he had a good plan to find the curve, read about his failure to use maximum braking, and read that his last comment before leaving the rails was, "Aw, we're dead," I get the impression of somone who is hapless.
Remember, at Amtrak the engineer is usually alone in the cab. Now has a trainee conductor with him. I wouldn't judge from this conversation as it doesn't reflect the normal working environment.Regards, Volker
Employees in 'investigative situations' where THEY KNOW they have screwed up and done so royally - will generate any manner of 'stories' in an effort to minimize their culpability in the actions they performed.
In reading the engineer's interview - he was doing his best tap dancing to shift blame on everything but himself. In such situations employees will take every tactic possible to demonstrate how inadequately trained on their job they are. In this case there are elements of truth to that, however, the reality is that he took no REPEAT NO attempts to slow the train until it was well past too late to have any effect on the speed of the train after having seen the Advance Speed Board and having decided it was too far from the point of restriction to begin braking - that was nominally One Minute and 30 seconds before the train flew onto I-5. (2 miles 80 MPH).
BaltACD 243129 Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here. I have never assumed 'alpha dog' status - thank you for conveying it, however, I must decline. I have only been a grunt, a grunt that got the opportunity to participate in many aspects of railroad operation on many different levels. In 51+ years service in many different areas you do learn things and see things and come to realize how interlocked many things are and what it takes to explain those things.
243129 Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here.
When a person makes themselves into a victim, they do tend to blame others. That is the nature of victimhood. All of a victim's mistakes are the fault of something else outside of himself/herself. When he was talking about getting lost on other occassions, I got the sense that he did not blame himself one bit. He blamed his employer for sending him into unfamiliar territory. Generally, I got the impression that his attitude would have been something like, "I am doing all I can, but if something does wrong it is Amtrak's fault." Others in that situation would stop and make inquiry to get straightened out. But he would seem to absolve himself of such responsibility because it is not his fault for getting lost.
Same with his plan to not get lost as he would be approaching the curve. He did not make enough effort to make that plan 100% reliable. Maybe he thought it was all Amtrak's fault for sending him on that run with so little familarity. So he played his victim identity and took a run that he was not prepared for. What he should have done is refused to take that run.
People who adopt victimhood make themselves hapless. It is like they are jinxed. They tend to become what is commonly referred to as being accident prone.
zugmann 243129 Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. And what qualified person judged you to determine whether you have the acumen to judge others? Who watches the watchers? So you were an engineer. Lots of others were/are, too. What sets you apart to make you know when someone will make a good candidate? Just because you ran a locomotive, or typed up a few messages to the media doesn't make you a HR hiring specialist. Do you have experience or training above and beyond being in engine service?
243129 Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
So, Joe, are you going to answer that question [which I put in bold for clarity]?
243129 BaltACD 243129 Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here. I have never assumed 'alpha dog' status - thank you for conveying it, however, I must decline. I have only been a grunt, a grunt that got the opportunity to participate in many aspects of railroad operation on many different levels. In 51+ years service in many different areas you do learn things and see things and come to realize how interlocked many things are and what it takes to explain those things. You have made an allegation about me I expect you to prove it.
You have made an allegation about me I expect you to prove it.
And what exactly was the allegation you claim Balt made?
Or will you now revert to your tactic of alleging others are using 'Trump-like tactics' when it seems that you are the one who does exactly that anytime you can't respond factually.
I guess I alledged you were an engineer! Sorry!
This is your allegation.
So where do I state/infer that?
BaltACD 243129 BaltACD 243129 Calm down no one is threatening your self-assumed status as the 'alpha dog' here. I have never assumed 'alpha dog' status - thank you for conveying it, however, I must decline. I have only been a grunt, a grunt that got the opportunity to participate in many aspects of railroad operation on many different levels. In 51+ years service in many different areas you do learn things and see things and come to realize how interlocked many things are and what it takes to explain those things. You have made an allegation about me I expect you to prove it. I guess I alledged you were an engineer! Sorry!
You wish to be snarky/petty?
The proper word/spelling is 'alleged'.
charlie hebdo zugmann 243129 Yes I feel qualified to judge whether a person has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer. And what qualified person judged you to determine whether you have the acumen to judge others? Who watches the watchers? So you were an engineer. Lots of others were/are, too. What sets you apart to make you know when someone will make a good candidate? Just because you ran a locomotive, or typed up a few messages to the media doesn't make you a HR hiring specialist. Do you have experience or training above and beyond being in engine service? So, Joe, are you going to answer that question [which I put in bold for clarity]?
The question is not yours but it is the 'sniper' zugmann's. However I will answer you not he.
What sets me, and my veteran co-workers apart is EXPERIENCE and lots of it. We have over the last 50+ years experienced just about every situation that could be presented to a railroad engineer. We have learned from those experiences in freight, passenger, commuter service, local freight, wreck service all without benefit of cab signal, PTC etc. and could pass them on to candidates were Amtrak not so arrogant. Yes I, and I am not alone, feel confident that I/we could assess whether or not a candidate has the acumen for the position of locomotive engineer.
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