The unfortunate crash of AMTRAK train # 188, is inexcusable. I happen to be knowledgeable railroad buff-fan-expert, or what have you, and I know that track. Trains leave Philly’ ’s 30th St. Station, and head in a northwest direction, basically following the Schuylkill river. Next it passes the Philly zoo, and then "Zoo Tower," where the track to Harrisburg and eventually Chicago branches left. Trackage then passes North Philly station, crosses over North Broad St, and heads to the fatal curve, where the line then heads to New York. There is NO PLACE BETWEEN 30th St Station, and the fatal curve, where there is a speed limit that is not 50 MPH or thereabouts. He should have been going 50 MPH since leaving 30th St station a few minutes before. How did he ever get to 106 MPH anyway? He must have been really drawing the amps on that electric locomotive to achieve that speed in such a short time! His lawyer says he has "no remembrance of it." I doubt this is true. His cell phone was tucked away and out of reach when he was immediately interviewed after the crash, and there were no drugs or alcohol in his blood steam.
Now the NTSB will take a year to figure it out, Typically, nothing government ever does is economic, and always is extremely wasteful and time consuming. Railroads, for over 150 years have furnished their own accident investigations, corrections, improvements, rights of way, stations, and various other necessities for rail transport, with no interventions and harassment from the federal government. Railroads also pay property taxes on every foot of trackage, yards, stations, and other real estate they own, plus taxes on their locomotives, cars, and equipment. AMTRAK runs on railroads’ rights of way and pays for their usage. Obviously, the engineer was at fault. Why doesn’t AMTRAK have PTC (positive train control) on that track? Because It is a slow track from 30th St. Station for the few miles to the fatal curve, and no train should go more than 50 MPH from the station to the curve where the train ran off the track. A car or truck going 106 MPH in a 50 MPH curve zone would crash just as did train 188. Lack of PTC wasn’t the problem. The problem was that there was only one man, the engineer, in the cab.
Freight trains have two men in the cab: The engineer and conductor. In AMTRAK trains, the conductor is busy collecting tickets and looking after passengers, leaving the engineer by himself in the cab. Consider that. Is there anything more inane, than having a hundred miles per hour passenger train with two hundred or more passengers, being in sole control of one engineer, with no backup of any kind? On December 1, 2014, at Spuyten Duyvil New York, an engineer fell asleep at the throttle and entered a 30 MPH curve at 82 MPH, causing a derailment costing four deaths, and 63 injuries. Neither of these two accidents would have occurred if there had been a co-engineer in the cab, not to mention the millions of dollars in damage to equipment and right of way in just these two accidents, caused by excessive speed on a curve. Would you fly commercial in a plane with the pilot by himself in the cockpit? Wouldn’t it make just common sense, for there to be a co-engineer in an AMTRAK engine cab, in case the engineer went nuts, lost control, fainted, had a seizure, or in some other way lost control of his train? I have read all of the accounts of these two pointless accidents, and not a single reporter or commentator has noted that a single engineer in total control of a 100 MPH train with hundreds of passengers aboard, makes absolutely no sense.