Number 90 posted:Big Jim posted:I find it completely idiotic to place a curve speed board a full two miles away from the intended curve! No wonder anyone not intimately familiar with the territory forgot!
Jim, BNSF practice is to place an advance speed board two miles in advance of the restriction and the actual speed board at the location where the restriction becomes effective.
Tom,
"Different strokes" as the song goes. It all depends on how you are trained.
The MoW folks used to do that with some temporary restrictions. I personally didn't like the idea. There was just too much time to forget and get lost in the fog. Our curve speed boards were, I'm guessing, no more than a half mile at most from the start of the curve/s. But no matter, once you learned the territory you knew where the curve was. Depending on the where you were, at times you used the sign post as a fixed marker for when to slow down.
Unlike what has happened here, Rookies didn't run our rails without a pilot engineer. Locomotive Trainees always had a qualified Engineer with them.
Another thing that I didn't like was an outsider in the cab yucking it up! Ruins the concentration and that leads to accidents!
