28 Years Ago....

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jis

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On this day 28 years ago, at 1:30pm, one of the most horrific accidents involving an Amtrak train occurred on the NEC in Chase MD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision

It resulted in both mandatory drug test and loco engineering licensing regulations to be put in place. In some ways it profoundly changed the way in which trains were operated.
 
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Train 94's speed at the time of the collision was estimated at about 108 miles per hour
Wow. Not any more, I guess.

Thanks for linking that, by the way. Fascinating read.
 
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It was on a Sunday that year in 1987 also. Learned of it through news blurbs that cut into the football games my family was watching.
 
Terrible tragedy but at least lessons were learned resulting in improvements in operations and safety!

I was in Mexico on Vacation and missed it but saw the news! I easily could have been on that train since I rode often during my days in WAS and the NE!

I would say that the Sunset Ltd crash into the swamps in Alabama in 1993 and the gravel truck tragedy in Nevada a couple of years ago involving the Zephyr were terrible also,maybe worse, but it still was a bad day for Amtrak!
 
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As bad as it was, it could have been a whole lot worse. The front coach was empty. It was destroyed. The NTSB felt that occupancy of the first coach would have been unsurvivable.
 
The Conrail locomotive crew failed to slow down at the signals before Gunpow Interlocking, and it was determined that the accident would have been avoided had they done so. Additionally, they tested positive for marijuana. The engineer served four years in a Maryland prison for his role in the crash.
I'm not normally a severe sentence fanatic but that stay was far too short and should have included the other employees who were aboard that train and those who had prevented the safety equipment from operating properly.

Reading Facebook posts about a serious event is hard for my mind to digest. What does it mean when people "like" a post about a tragedy? Is there a reason people feel the need to respond to deadly events with cutesy shorthand? Reading some of those replies makes me feel like my brain is hemorrhaging. Old enough to remember 1987 and yet still not old enough to talk like an adult.
 
The Conrail locomotive crew failed to slow down at the signals before Gunpow Interlocking, and it was determined that the accident would have been avoided had they done so. Additionally, they tested positive for marijuana. The engineer served four years in a Maryland prison for his role in the crash.
I'm not normally a severe sentence fanatic but that stay was far too short and should have included the other employees who were aboard that train and those who had prevented the safety equipment from operating properly.
I have to agree with you there. I must admit I let out an explicative or two when I read the sentencing. That is ridiculous. Only three years is what fourteen murders gets you? Huh...
 
I have to agree with you there. I must admit I let out an explicative or two when I read the sentencing. That is ridiculous. Only three years is what fourteen murders gets you? Huh...
US criminal sentencing is completely deranged in general: typically, decades in prison for drug possession or sale, or even for copyright infringment... but only a few years for multiple murders or rapes, or torture, or, well, you get the point.

I really have no idea how to fix the situation; it seems to me that most people aren't even aware how messed up it is.
 
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Anybody got the link to the official NTSB (or whatever it was called back then) report?

I've heard, and read, that this was the worst (aside from Bayou Canou?) accident.

Not asking for the nostalgia (back then the "gates of hell" were Ricky and Daryl and Bill)

Asking whether the safety culture has got better since then, (or since "" Casey Jones "") and what's the trend ?

Especially -- about the trend.

'Cause I know (and everybody everywhere knows) that most places, riding that train is about ten times safer than crossing the nearest street, wherever you live.

Anybody got local (or USA, or region) stats over the lasst few decades?
 
Reading Facebook posts about a serious event is hard for my mind to digest. What does it mean when people "like" a post about a tragedy?
The particular post that Charlie linked to was from the volunteer fire department whose members were seen in the photo, so I would read the "likes" as saying "thank you to firefighters and other first responders," "thank you for posting this interesting historical photo," and other positives of that ilk.
 
In the 1990s, I was a volunteer brakeman and conductor on the Osceola & St. Croix Valley excursion train. Because we operated over active Soo Line tracks between Marine-on-St.-Croix, MN and Dresser, WI, we went through the same rules and air brake training classes and exams as "real" railroad employees. Our instructor often referred to those new rules as "Ricky Gates Laws," named for the Conrail engineer who caused the crash at Gunpow.
 
The engineer was sentenced to far more than four years. What happened was, after he did four, it was discovered that the med techs at the FAA's drug tsting center in Oklahoma didn't know how to use the equipment and therefore faked results. Since ALL DOT-related drug tests were handled there, EVERYONE convicted with that "evidence" had to be released.
 
The operator working WOOD tower during this collision just retired not too long ago. He really didn't like talking about it. Quite understandable. The engineer is CHASE 2 just retired a few weeks ago. There are few people left that lived these events that can express the importance of them to the newbies. Most can't fathom such incidents which (in my opinion) results in a lack of urgency when it comes to certain aspects of the railroad.
 
The engineer was sentenced to far more than four years. What happened was, after he did four, it was discovered that the med techs at the FAA's drug tsting center in Oklahoma didn't know how to use the equipment and therefore faked results. Since ALL DOT-related drug tests were handled there, EVERYONE convicted with that "evidence" had to be released.
Yeech. Corruption everywhere.... seriously, I don't know why so many people working in law enforcement think that it's OK to fake evidence. It's never OK.
 
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