He is a disgrace in so many ways.
Does anyone really think this is anything other than human error? Why is everyone so quick to blame infrastructure or politicians or taxes when in all likelihood the engineer fell asleep, had a medical issue, or was not paying attention?
The reason they are blaming infrastructure is because if the train had the PTC system, the train could have been stopped remotely if it seemed to be out of control. I don’t know whether it would have worked in this case or not, we also don’t know what happened here, it is obvious the engineer didn’t black out or have a heart attack since he was released from the hospital. It could be a mechanical failure, in which case maintainence might be an issue, we don’t know. On the other hand, Christie’s aversion to mass transit is well known, he has made clear that he thinks that if make commuting into NYC difficult and costly, the jobs will move to NJ (not very bright, but then again, as Forrest Gump says, “stupid is as stupid does”).
I’m blaming infrastructure because in 2016 and after many conductor errors, we can do better. We have ways of doing better. We can make it safer.
We don’t elect people who value infrastructure reform. I blame the general public as much as the government.
Apparently the positive train controls exist primarily on freight lines owned by private industry.
Not so much on passenger lines owned by governments. Not surprising since the real costs of operating NJ transit, for example, is 2.5 times the price of the tickets, with the difference ($1.5 billion for NJT) coming from federal and state taxpayers.
It’s also not clear that the PTC devices would have made any difference in this particular accident since it took place in a restricted speed area where those devices don’t normally operate.
So, remind me again, is that the good news or the bad news?
Right now, the money isn’t coming from anywhere.
It was a typical unfunded mandate from congress. One of the reasons freight lines has implemented this I suspect is that from a business standpoint it makes sense, that having this system means a reduction in the number of accidents that happen, which costs them in lawsuits, and also in negative publicity, like when a train derails or has an accident that is carrying a topic cargo. There is historic precedent in this, in the 19th century two major innovations in trains happened, the air brake and the knuckle couple. The railroad companies, run by the usual roi beancounter crowd, balked, saying it was too expensive, they weren’t going to spend that money ‘to protect train crews, who are a dime a dozen’ (quote was the head of the Pennsylvania RR), the usual crap…in 1890 congress mandated both features, and surprise surprise, having those ended up being a boon for them, cut their losses due to lawsuits and lost cargo and allowed them gasp to run longer trains at higher speeds, which meant they could deliver more cargo faster (what as concept, goes to show you beancounters have always existed). I think the freight companies realized having PTC would end up saving them money in the end, so went ahead and did it. Why passenger railroads haven’t implemented it is pretty obvious, there are a lot of politicians who don’t look at passenger rail as being anything but a giant kind of welfare state ‘living off the government’, and so forth, so there aren’t the funds to implement it (despite the fact that commuter rail along with other forms of mass transit have kept some major metropolitan areas at the top of the heap economically, while others choke on the automobile-centered commuting in their region).
I live in a state with very little passenger rail, mainly because it is opposed by the current governor. Now he’s also refusing to approve raising the gas tax, which will result in big delays in road construction projects. The “people” finally seem to be paying attention to what’s going on.