Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Amtrak Engineer

Amtrak, ahhhh...yes....another taxpayer funded boondoggle. 2 Billion Dollars a year in Taxpayer subsidies, millions and millions handed out in Taxpayer funded pensions, something like 16 unions making sure the "employees" have zero accountability, a board of directors that are simply political hacks with zero railroad experience, a welfare entitlement program and not really a railroad.

Other than that.....what could go wrong.....

this is not going to end well for Brandon the Engineer and nor should it. The dude either has narcolepsy or he was on drugs.

He remembers driving the train, Goggin said, but "has absolutely no recollection of the incident or anything unusual."

That's his only defense at this point. A medical condition caused it...

Sucks for him that he applied the brakes going into the curve because that is what is going to fook him

Ah, the old Amnesia/Sleepwalking defense. That never works out.

I read that he left the station sixteen minutes behind schedule. He was speeding to make up time. If the speed limit was 50 on that turn, like on a highway the turn probably could be taken in relative safety at 70 or 75 mph and in a pinch, it probably has been taken at 90 mph fairly regularly.

He just screwed up and was going too fast and then panicked. There was a retired Amtrak conductor on the radio last night who said that the train would have made that turn at 106 mph without too much problem except that he panicked and hit the emergency brakes. The brakes work from front to rear with the front cars slowing down first. Hitting the emergency brakes going that fast into a turn like that made all the back cars pile onto the front cars that had already slowed down first and caused the derailment.

It is like driving a car, the worst thing you can do is panic and lock up the breaks going into a turn.

Got the NY stripey hat mf'er off his schtick.

"Undiagnosed sleep apnea precipitating a debilitating fatigue" or some such bullshit got him off killing those four folks about 3 years ago.

Hmmm....just possibly American technology needs to put its' pride in the back pocket and seek information from abroad!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIwbrZ4knpg

There are folks in NY that I count as family, but overall, some very strange sheet seems to happen up there.

Of course not. They don't associate with the worker peasants on smelly, noisy trains. They fly in their personal Gulf Stream and Lear jets.

L.W.

Would you get on a train knowing this guy was anywhere near the controls?

Thinking he may be seeing a lot more of his alter ego

Isn't that Pajama Boy wearing a funny looking hat??

L.W.

No railroad curve is good for double the speed, even with relatively light passenger equipment. Maybe it would hold at +25ish. Nobody regularly takes curves or violates max speeds, especially not by more than 10mph over max speed. FRA takes their card for 30 days first offense and a couple more times and card can be gone for years.

ridin that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed.

Engineer fuct up, if he was high on cocaine he be going 2 jail.

Maybe, but nobody, unless he was having some sort of medical emergency suddenly decides to go 106 mph into a curve that is rated for 50 mph. He had been taking that curve way over the posted speed limit for a long time. Maybe the limit on that curve was artificially low or maybe he was a daredevil. Who knows? But you don't suddenly go from 50 or 60 mph to 106 mph. More likely he was going from 80 or 85 mph to a moment's inattention and being further down the track than he thought, and then entering it at 106 mph.

I get what you are saying, but that is what is SUPPOSED to happen. It obviously wasn't happening here because you don't go from 50 mph to 106 mph.

At a minimum they need to charge him with DWHUA.

Driving With Head Up Ass.

Death count up to 8 now.

From my railroad experience when the train goes into emergency, all cars brakes go on pretty much simultaneously, even on a train a mile long. The engine pumps the brakes off, ON is the default position once the air is pumped up. Air pressure pumps the brakes off, not on as some believe. Each car has an air tank to hold the air pressure that holds the brakes off.

It's easier to understand than it is to explain..

Old engines of my time had a dead man pedal but could be defeated with a case 50 cent piece wedged in to keep it down. If your foot slipped off, the train would go into emergency braking. Also if an air hose came uncoupled or if it burst, or the train broke a knuckle or draw head and separated, the train would go into emergency braking.

Time was there was a speed recorder on the engines. These were checked and engineers were subject to be fired for a period of time, if a speed violation occurred. My route between Savannah and Macon, Southern Train 135-136, was max 49 MPH on a freight train. We were in the dark with no electronic signals or tracking.

I'm sure things have changed since then but not much.