RobertB
Train Attendant
The chatter about the supposed "plot" by Bin Laden and his cronies to derail a train got me thinking about the perception of risk, versus the reality of risk. As has been pointed out already, a rail-based attack in the US would be a ridiculously low-return way to terrorize a population. Passenger rail systems are designed with so much robustness, that even in a worst-case scenario, fatalities are minimized. I'm thinking of the Los Angeles tragedy, where the engineer was too busy texting to notice the signal and telescoped into a freight. Out of hundreds of commuters, a couple of dozen died. Hugely tragic, but also a pretty impressive result given the enormous physical forces involved.
I've done a lot of Wikipedia-surfing, reading articles on rail signaling and safety considerations. In many cases, improvements were made after a terrible tragedy, and became standard practice on all modern rail lines. It's an amazing process of continuous improvement. There's a lot of erring on the side of caution. Tracks that might support higher speeds and/or more trains are restricted. Everything possible is done so that, even if *everything* goes wrong, the worst that can happen is that things come to a stop and passengers have to make alternate travel plans instead of funeral arrangements.
Now, contrast that with what we're about to do here in Texas. On the wide, open spaces of West Texas, the distances are huge. It's further from Houston to El Paso than from El Paso to Los Angeles. So the speed limits have been increasing, ever since Sammy Hagar last sang "I Can't Drive 55". The speed limit on I-10 and I-20 is now up to 80mph, and the Legislature is mulling a plan to raise it to 85. The state DOT will be required to conduct studies of the roads, but one of the criteria is "how fast are people already driving?" Here's how the Austin daily paper explains it:
I don't think anyone could possibly disagree with the following statement: If the State of Texas raises the speed limit, more people will die. It's only a question of how many.
Here's a crazy thought, in the spirit of Swift's "Modest Proposal": If passenger railroads were allowed to take the risk of accumulating a few casualties among their clients each year, could they compete with the automobile?
I've done a lot of Wikipedia-surfing, reading articles on rail signaling and safety considerations. In many cases, improvements were made after a terrible tragedy, and became standard practice on all modern rail lines. It's an amazing process of continuous improvement. There's a lot of erring on the side of caution. Tracks that might support higher speeds and/or more trains are restricted. Everything possible is done so that, even if *everything* goes wrong, the worst that can happen is that things come to a stop and passengers have to make alternate travel plans instead of funeral arrangements.
Now, contrast that with what we're about to do here in Texas. On the wide, open spaces of West Texas, the distances are huge. It's further from Houston to El Paso than from El Paso to Los Angeles. So the speed limits have been increasing, ever since Sammy Hagar last sang "I Can't Drive 55". The speed limit on I-10 and I-20 is now up to 80mph, and the Legislature is mulling a plan to raise it to 85. The state DOT will be required to conduct studies of the roads, but one of the criteria is "how fast are people already driving?" Here's how the Austin daily paper explains it:
I think you can see the problem here. The drivers exceeding the speed limit do not base their decisions on engineering studies and knowledge of blind spots, reaction distance, deer populations, vehicle performance, and their tires' coefficient of friction. They just drive as fast as they want to.The bill goes on to require TxDOT, in order to exceed the "normal" rural freeway speed limit of 70 mph, to conduct studies showing that the bulk of cars are already going faster than the existing limit. The logic is that people, absent the heavy-duty presence of state troopers handing out tickets, tend to drive at speeds appropriate to the road design and amount of traffic.
I don't think anyone could possibly disagree with the following statement: If the State of Texas raises the speed limit, more people will die. It's only a question of how many.
Here's a crazy thought, in the spirit of Swift's "Modest Proposal": If passenger railroads were allowed to take the risk of accumulating a few casualties among their clients each year, could they compete with the automobile?