Steims posted:Hot Water posted:Steims posted:Transportation disasters typically are never caused by a single event. The systems we have tend to involve and element of human error and mechanical/electrical failures. This event sure sounds like a dispatcher threw the switch
How do you know it was a "power switch", controlled by a Dispatcher?
not knowing the Amtrak was southbound and then the (known) signal failures failed to warn the Amtrak what was ahead.
How do you know it was a "signal failure"?
I suspect the Amtrak engineer started braking as soon as he saw the switch thrown but there was not enough distance to stop.
Thoughts and prayers go out.
The siding is very long which looks like a passing siding to me. Zooming in on Google at each switch I see a metal enclosure/controls equipment.
That would be the "electric lock" equipment for the MANUAL THROW switch. Since that is CTC territory, permission MUST be obtained from the Dispatcher to open the switch, then the "electric lock" is operated (which would NORMALLY change the signal indications on the main line signals, in both directions). Then, and only then, should/can the switch be opened manually.
This "signal failure" was based on what was already reported. Maybe signal outage would have been a better choice of words.
Well, neither since it was a planned "Signal Suspension", meaning that there were many Signal Maintainers, and possibly contractors, working in that area, and the entire signal system was "off". As a result, the trains operating through that area, would be operating under Track Warrant Control from the Dispatcher. In fact, the Amtrak Conductor, who was also in the cab, was copying a Track Warrant from the Dispatcher at the time.
Additional information has recently been "discovered" that the CSX crew of the freight train "stored" in that siding, and already reported "clear" to the Dispatcher, when in fact, they may NOT have realigned the switch prior to the Amtrak train arrival. Thus, the Amtrak train entered the siding and ran head-on into the tied-down CSX freight train.
"Typically, an automatic signal would have warned that the switch was in the wrong position, instructing the engineer to slow down. However, a crew had recently been working on the system in that area, and it may have been shut off when the incident occurred, the source said."
