IMHO, it is how people view such accidents.
Yeah, the NTSB sure didn't pull any punches:Speaking of the 1000 series cars, the NTSB has already said in a press conference today that it recommended to the WMTA and the builder of the cars that they needed more structural strength or that they should be retired otherwise. Neither was done apparently and the NTSB's predictions of what would happen to the cars in a crash are now quite visible in the accident photos. Sadly.
I assume that they have every kind of control available as the system is supposed to be state of the art. That means there should have been some form of automatic train stop if the operator is incapacitated or if the train ignores a speed restriction or red light and I wonder if they don't have GPS tracking plus they have a huge dispatching center where they know where every train is at every second. They run thousands of trains everyday and they don't run into each other. So something extraordinary happenned to make this accident occur. If you notice, it happenned on a blind curve. So I just wonder if the operator had somehow taken manual control became frustrated with the delay and ignored a signal or speed restriction. The only other possibility that I can think of is somehow the trains computer went nuts or it's systems failed somehow. That they can probably determine even with the devastation. Think there might be a few hundred lawsuits after this??????????
This from "All Aboard":
Good idea. While they're on the subject, maybe parking rail cars on tracks used by Outbound Trains should also be prohibited?
For auto accidents news stations should do a best of the week. They will surely find more than nine deaths and 70 injuries.
In a single auto accident?
The recommendation that the 1000 series trains be retired long ago, is apparently the lead story this evening for the 5pm TV news.
On an automated system in manual operation (ATO cut-out), the operator cannot violate the speed restriction even if he or she tries. The ATC will not permit it even in manual operation. If ATC says 20mph, the operator can push the throttle all the way forward if he wants. Once the train hits 20mph, the throttle will drop-out and the brakes will engage. If the ATC says stop, the train stops, no matter what the operator does. Total manual operation with ATC cut-out is used very rarely, only under the direction of the dispatchers, and never at more than 15mph regardless of what the signals say. I believe train speed control limits the operation to 15mph whenever ATC is cut-out.
Still banging that old drum? Best way to survive a crash is not have one in the first place. Anything else is just window dressing.
To be fair to George Harris, it appears WMATA did everything they realistically could to eliminate crashes from happening (automatic train stop, automated controls to virtually eliminate the human error element, etc.), but as George said, it's foolhardy to assume that an accident will NEVER happen despite every possible effort to prevent it. There is something to be said about build quality and crash standards as a last-resort backup.
Unless the accident occurs at a railway crossing or otherwise involves a train.
Doesn't that reduce the amount of energy that is saved taking mass transit?
Somewhat, but not entirely, especially if technologies like regenerative braking are used. No matter how you slice it, steel-wheel-on-steel-rail will almost always beat rubber-tire-on-asphalt (especially single-occupancy-vehicle-rubber-tire-on-asphalt).
). I'm just saying there's something to be said for the resiliency of heavier equipment in the event of a protective system failure like Metro just experienced.
Rohr built the first generation BART cars, which entered service in 1972. Metro started in 1976. The Rohr Metro cars are similar in many ways to the first BART cars. These cars where built in the recession era of the early 1970's when aerospace was in the dumps and companies like Rohr were trying to find some other market. BART offered that opportunity, and the fact that Rohr was a California firm helped a bit was well. Once Rohr had the tooling and the production set-up for BART, the Metro work was a natural follow-up.
Yes, but its a subway train, how heavy do you make it exactly? Lets face it, running into the back of another train is a very very silly thing to do, FRA regs are of little consequence then, when you are bouncing round in the car.
Heavy enough to not disintegrate the way the 1k car did on impact. The idea that we'll be able to fully prevent railcars from ever coming into contact with one another is the very definition of hubris.
