Thursday, May 14, 2015

To All Subway and Rail Management, including Cargo/Freight.

The jobs with these utilities are excellent jobs. I sincerely doubt there is an employee that does not take their responsibilities seriously. Kindly consider, when bringing attention to the timely arrival and departures of these rail services that there is a vital human being, not easily replaced, in the engineer's seat. The demands of management to comply with 'late' arrivals and departures can be more of a threat then a reminder to the responsibility of the staff.

If I may? I have a suggestion.

Before approaching employees about any tardiness of arrivals and departments ask A QUALIFIED STATISTICIAN to run the numbers. The history, both recent and historic, should be explored to ACCURATELY find the problem. If recent history shows there is a systemic problem, then there is more to the picture than is obvious at first glance. 

When trend lines are examined there can be a determination of future demands to predict the rail needs. In the case of human transportation there is always and chronic population growth. That population growth has to be evaluated along with short and long and future trend lines. Then the picture will clear up. If there are more people boarding and leaving at any given time at the station the time of arrival and departure is going to be different. Five seconds longer will result in one minute after twelve stops. One minute an hour will result in 8 minutes in an average day shift. That is an extremely conservative picture to the way people are using the rail services.

The management of human transportation can't be taken lightly. My understanding of this particular section of the rails is that the curve is taken at 50 mph while the track leading into the curve is rated at 100 mph. That is pushing it. The rail management when permitting 100 mph needs to STEP DOWN the rate of speed into the corners and out of those same corns. Please don't 'leave it up to the judgement of the engineer'. If he or she is feeling the pressure to 'catch up' with any tardiness they will seek to maintain legal high speed into a slower section of track.

Rail management has to be the buffer of the demands of outside forces upon the employees. Employees receive plenty of pressure from the passengers. I am familiar with rail travel and some folks really can be rather upsetting. But, I have never witnessed any conductor become intolerable or upset. The employees of any rail services I have experienced are among the most nice and patient with people as they ask for tickets or issuing one on the train. That demeanor doesn't come easy. Please protect them from politics and harsh treatment by the outside world.

Those are my suggestions. Rail management has to be diplomats as well as managers. 

The funding needed for public service has to meet the demand to maintain safety. Cutting funding to these vital services is to FORCE the utility to improve performance. Improving performance within rail services can take many forms, including more frequent trips within a time span and/or cutting personnel, etc. All those changes are fine if it doesn't effect safety. There have been more than one Amtrak derailment that have effected passengers with injury or otherwise. Those injuries and otherwise MATTER MORE THAN FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS.

"They started this yesterday and the funding of Amtrak. Look, the guy driving the train was going to fast."

Let's think about that 'idea' from Speaker Boner. 

To begin he isn't the manager of Amtrak. I am sure he doesn't get daily updates as if it were a PDB. Homeland Security carries that responsibility and I am sure the department can speak to any aspect of rail safety that impacts the national security of the USA. 

Speaker Boner isn't even interested in mentioning THE FACT there were eight people that died ON OUR PUBLIC PASSENGER SYSTEM. That doesn't matter to him. The dynamics that played out yesterday is a problem that can be PREVENTED. 

PREVENTED. 

PREVENTED. 

I have no respect for a House Speaker that is this out of touch with the reality and needs of the people of the USA. He is more than insensitive, he is completely disinterested. 

An Amtrak employee that has worked in a great job for five years is not going to put his life on the line nor anyone else's. I do not believe this was pathological. I think this was a man that misjudged exactly where the corner was in his handling of the train. It is my assessment he misjudged the location of the curve because he doesn't normally travel at 100+ mph along the stretch of straight track. He wasn't compensating for a faster speed and where exactly he was in his transit along the rail. It was a profoundly unfortunate incident, he was alone in the lead engine and he had to have been under some kind of stress to improve his performance. 

The driver of the Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 misjudged where he needed to brake the train because of the anticipated CUTS IN GOVERNMENT FUNDING that placed completely Amtrak in the path of bankruptcy. 

John Boehner you are a horrible man. You have no interest in the well being of the people of this country. You play with power regardless of how that effects citizens of this country and that, sir, is pathological.

The Republicans you lead are even worst then you. 

In this instance of human behavior and a subway in Australia a mother nearly losses her child because there is a small incline toward the tracks. The carriage began to roll unexpectedly to the mother. The on coming subway could not stop, but, more likely didn't even see the carriage fall from the platform. Irregardless, this is a human event when she approached the technology of transportation. The baby's life was in danger in seconds and not minutes, not hours. 

There are many odd things that happen everyday on Earth when the humanness of people are matched to other properties of daily living. That doesn't mean anyone intended to have unfortunate things to happen. It does mean there are some aspects of living that is dangerous and dealing with subways by a new mother was never given a thought. I wish she was protected from the trauma of the event, but, it is unrealistic to expect every danger in life will be averted.

THE ONE aspect of this video loop PROVES people have frailties. It is when people in a capitalistic society are forced to be vigilant to their employment to support their families to extremes for the sake of profiteers or overbearing and incapable government that the 'room for error' becomes ridiculously stupid and validates a human being isn't a machine.