Probably the best-advised course for anyone in a similar situation, though. IANAL, but wouldn’t it be tantamount to legal malpractice if his attorney hadn’t told him not to answer any questions?
Given what his acquaintances are saying he’s always been in love with trains. The deaths attributed to his actions may be worse than any legal verdict.
I still remember when communication to trains was done via land line to switching towers and then notes strung between poles that engineers had to snag as they drove by… That was close to 40 years ago. This isn’t 1970 and the technology to avoid this kind of accident is already well established and in place.
Just do it.
Looking pretty suspicious. Reports are the train accelerated from 70 to over 100 shortly before the crash. I’m not sleeping and have to watch the news on mute (because, contrary to popular opinion, I am not an asshole), so I ain’t got any details, if there are any yet.
Lucy got some splianin’ to do.
It makes some sense … its well known that people forget the crash because their short term memory processing is cleared because of the crash…they lose a few seconds of their memory before the impact up to some time when their brain works properly again later on.
Perhaps he was in some drowsy or blanked out state, such as from excess caffiene, TIA, diabetes , some sort of glucose level issue, and he was able to operate the “safety switch” to keep the train going, but he didn’t read speed limit signs… until realized “thats a sharp corner !”.
There was much talk about having a fireman on diesel trains when I was a kid. The Union wanted to keep one “for safety” and the companies wanted to not have to pay them.
I once was coming home. Was on the outer edge of town. Next thing I mentally note is that I am on the OTHER side of town. Having no idea of the passage of time or how I got there.
No extenuating circumstances or possible reasons something like that could have happened. And I mean NONE. Never happened before or since.
Highway hypnosis is a very real risk, and it affects train engineers, too. That stuff can mess you up.
It was STOP and GO urban traffic :eek:
Oh, in that case you were abducted by aliens.
Couple o’ things… Railroads - and their operating employees - are federally regulated. Local law enforcement has little or no jurisdiction over right-of-way, equipment or on-duty personnel. The engineer was absolutely right to refuse to answer questions from local LEO’s, was probably under standing orders to that effect. Local cops reportedly seized his cell phone, an illegal act in itself. One railroad that I’ve had experience with instructs their engineers in the event of a grade crossing accident that unless there is imminent danger such as fire they are not to leave the locomotive and to stay within railroad property and give no statements to anyone until relieved by a railroad official or federal regulator. This also applies to giving specimen samples for drug testing. These must be given to railroad officials or federal investigators, not to police. It annoys local cops to discover their authority is less than total, and there have been several cases of threats and forcible arrests of operating personnel, actions that local police departments usually have cause to regret.
Per the Amtrak NEC timetable, there is a 65 mph curve (all mains) about 1.9 miles west of the derailment location. Track speed increases to 80 on the straightaway before the 50 mph curve where they derailed.
It appears the Amtrak engineer accelerated out of the 65 curve and never throttled back when hitting 80. There is a report that a SEPTA commuter train was struck by rocks or bullets in the area of the 65 mph curve just minutes before the Amtrak train passed through. This image of the aftermath of the crash shows possible rock or bullet damage to the engineers-side windshield. It is not unlikely that this train was struck as well, and that the impact stunned, blinded or otherwise disabled the engineer just as he should have begun decelerating / braking for the curve ahead.
This rush to judgement is to be expected from the media. What surprises me is that there are so many Dopers (including legal and LEO types) who are so quick to jump on the bandwagon.
**SeldomSeen **nailed it. In my industry the situation is similar. Accidents aren’t crimes. We work over a period of days, weeks and perhaps months with the NTSB and FAA. Local LEO has no role, and is expected to butt out from the git-go.
And I too am gravely disappointed at how many of our normally rational Dopers are inclined to jump to judgment.
Negligence is a crime when it kills people. While it’s possible he got shot and fell on the deadman’s switch it’s hardly a rush to judgement to suggest that he fell asleep, as it’s happened in the past far more often than getting shot. It’s not a court of law, it’s conjecture. And it doesn’t change the suggestion that trains have some kind of remote controlled braking capacity.
Here’s an article about the possibility that the train was shot or struck by something -
Apparently, Bostian was talking on the radio with another engineer who claimed that his train had been struck by bullets or rocks or some such.
Apparently, throwing things at trains is a regular occurance in that part of Philly.
It’s popular in just about every depressed area a train passes through. Even good citizens get tired of train horns in the middle of the night. In my area some towns have “no train horn” sections of track that are augmented with directional traffic horns mounted at the crossings.
Given the on-going problem it would make sense to line the inside of the windows with plastic thick enough to be useful.
I love listening to train horns in bed. I even looked up what the different patterns mean. Most are, “Get the hell out of my way.”
Meh, people do it all the time.
The Black Box is a pretty damn good witness. Common Sense is a pretty nifty tool as well.
How long did it take to figure out what happened to the GermanWings flight? About 10 minutes?
yes, so do I. But I don’t live near the tracks and if there are any zombies running around it’s because the train horns woke up the dead. They’re seriously loud.
This sounds like the most logical reason for the derailment.
This should be investigated and treated the same as terrorism. Find the bastards who did this and put them on trial. Does Pennsylvania have the death penalty?
I’d also like it pointed out over and over again that the rush-to-judgement - “that bastard engineer did it!” - might be wrong in this case, as it often is. Can we stop hanging people in public opinion before the evidence is in? Probably not.
Yeah, rather than just prosecute the guy driving the train because he’s “obviously” guilty it’s a good thing there was an actual investigation because if someone is throwing things/shooting trains maybe we should go after that person rather than screwing up the lives of people trying to make a living who wind up victimized not just by people whacking trains but also the court of public opinion. Otherwise, sure, you get your vengeance on the train driver, but you don’t actually solve the problem or get the real guilty party.