John Albert wrote:
> On 7/12/14 1:36 AM, dpeltier@my-deja.com wrote:
>> ohn, I don't think any of us have seen or heard what the prosecutors'
>> theory of the case is, but the question of happened to the automatic brakes
>> seems totally irrelevant to me. The train was required to have a sufficient
>> number of handbrakes set to hold the train without air, and it did not.
>> Seems to me the criminal case - at least for the engineer - will be all
>> about determining whose fault that was, and whether it rises to the level
>> of criminal recklessness. What happened with the automatic brakes should
>> have been totally irrelevant, if handbrakes had been set as required.
>
> The train did not move because of something the engineman didn't do.
>
> It moved because of something else that happened after he left the scene.
>
> I will guess (as I'm not privy to the special instructions, either
> written or verbal, that were generally given to engineman who tied down
> the train at that location) that the instructions for the Nantes tie-down
> were to apply all locomotive hand brakes and a certain number of car brakes.
>
> I will also guess that the engineman complied with these instructions. He
> may have miscounted a car brake or two.
I'm willing to say that whether or not he complied with the rules is a fair
question, given how little we know. Whether any lack of compliance
constitutes criminal behavior is a second question to be answered. But
here's my point again: the answers to these questions have NOTHING TO DO
with the question of why the air brakes did not hold the train. Any
criminal behavior the engineer took part in happened before he went to the
hotel.
> You further wrote:
> [[ How in the bloody hell would this exonerate anybody? The rules require
> sufficient handbrakes to hold the train, period. ]]
>
> A word like "sufficient" is purposely left vague to protect management in
> terms of mishaps and accidents.
>
> You may counter that the "proper test" would be for the engineman to go
> back to the cab, release all all, and see if the train moved. He
I certainly wouldn't say that. That doesn't sound very practical at all as
a general rule, for the reasons you give and some others too. (For
instance: how would you perform this test on a cut of cars that is not
connected to a locomotive? Or when you're spotting cars for loading or
unloading, or on a track that is just barely long enough to hold the
train?)
Yes, I agree it's likely that the company had a formula for how many brakes
to set based on tonnage and grade. It's possible the engineer complied and
it wasn't enough, or that some of the brakes were defective and he couldn't
tell despite complying with the defined procedures, or that his paperwork
had the wrong trailing tonnage. So yes, it's possible that the engineer did
nothing wrong. We shall see. But again, the way in which the air brakes
were released cannot possibly exonerate him in from any possible
wrongdoing, because he was not supposed to be relying on the air brakes,
period.
>
> [[ The NTSB just released two reports on railroad accidents at the beginning
> of this month. The incidents are from July 2011 and July 2012 respectively.
> The one incident I was personally familiar with took 27 months to release
> the report. The reports include not just the facts, but also an analysis of
> the cause and contributing causes, along with suggested remedial actions. ]]
>
> What accidents were those?
- KCS t-boned the BNSF at a diamond in Barton, MO
- BRC employee fatality pinched between cars in the bowl tracks at Clearing
Yard
Just to be clear - I had no connection to either of these two incidents.
The one I was familiar with happened several years earlier, and the report
was released after a similar delay.
Dan
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