Re: [cpsig] Fw: Central Maine & Quebec CEO: 'We'll have to prove ourselves'
- From: <kvrailway@xxxxxxx>
- To: <cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 19:54:05 -0700
From the outside looking in, it appears to me that this was one more
incident in a series of hundreds of thousands of such instances
through the past 150+ years of railroading, where a 'perfect storm of poor
practises' came together to result in a tragedy. A lot of it,
but not all of it, can be laid at the feet of managers and regulators who
don't know history or clearly understand the operation they
oversee. Like every incident I've ever been party to in my railway career,
at Megantic, it seems that all the wrong things came together
at the wrong moment.
Had any one thing gone as it should have, the problem probably wouldn't have
occurred. People get used of the idea that you can
get away with things that aren't really kosher. They are usually right.
That's why the industry gets away with bad practises as often
as it does ... simply because it usually does. And then one day ... it
doesn't. Probably the saddest thing of all ... and this applies
equally to management and the troops - in my experience, most people can't
identify a bayonet until it is six inches between their
ribs. They had to see it happen to believe it. It was the inability to see
or lack of willingness - especially on the part of the various
governments and their regulators - to acknowledge the dangers inherent in
what the MM&A was being permitted which played no little
part in what happened. Megantic wasn't the result of just one goof ... it
was a whole bunch of problems ... as usual, and as usual, it
looks like the the monkeys instead of the organ grinders will face the
firing squad.
Joe Smuin
-----Original Message-----
From: 'Roger T.' rogertra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [cpsig]
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:53 PM
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [cpsig] Fw: Central Maine & Quebec CEO: 'We'll have to prove
ourselves'
It isn’t leaving the train unattended which is the big problem. It was
leaving it on top of a hill rather than using a spot a mile farther west
where the track is in a sag. A train in the bottom of a sag could not run
away.
=======================================
I imagine the engineer was told on which siding to leave the train. So the
dispatcher would know were it was. Why would the engineer leave the train,
without permission, on the main track, in a "sag"? He left the train, on a
siding, with a convenient grade crossing so the taxi could reach him and
take him to the hotel/motel. Something he'd done numerous times before.
If the train had not been left unattended, the accident would probably not
have happened. Doesn't matter where the train is left, leaving any train
unattended is just plain dangerous, sadly as events have proven.
And, I believe the rules have now been changed to reflect this.
Roger Traviss
Home of the late Great Eastern Railway
http://greateasternrailway.com
More photos of the late GER at: -
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/
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Posted by: "Roger T." <rogertra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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