[PRCo] Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain

[Phillip Clark Campbell]

Mr.Schneider,

For the transportation industry:
"Safety is our highest Priority.""

Is this just a slogan or is it reality?


 Phil




________________________________
From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Sent: Wed, March 9, 2011 11:33:02 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: The Rest of the World -Electric Rails - Britain

Industry managers always used something called a cost benefit analysis.   You 
put your dollars first where it got the biggest bang for the buck.    
Politicians say any death is one death too many because the money doesn't come 
out of their pockets.   Lawyers will say any death is one death to many because 
they can take the money from some one else's pocket and make money doing it.  I 
think both of those are sad.

My personal view point is that we need to go back to a cost benefit analysis.   
A freight railroad which runs a couple of trains a day needs to have very low 
priority.   If they don't have positive train control for the next 100 years, so 
what?   Do we spent a billions equipping hundreds of thousands of miles of track 
to save a few lives?   More people lose lives in the falling in the bath tub.   
Why don't we pass a law making it illegal to bathe?  


The Southern Pacific - Amtrak line from San Jose down to Santa Barbara deserves 
to have a very low priority.  Yes you can slam a freight train into the 
Starlight but the chance of it happening there is marginal compared to other 
places and speeds are much lower there thus injuries will be much lower.  


The Northeast Corridor with passenger trains running on headways up to 15 
minutes or shorter in the rush should have a and with Acela trains running at 
100 mph or more mixing it up with commuter trains ... I think that should have 
the highest priority in the nation. 


Wouldn't it be cheaper to pass the trainmen and enginemen through a scanner to 
find their cell phones and take them away before the climb into the cab?  


Oh TIH ... You mean I won't be able to go swimming because of the chlorine in 
the pool?   Will breathing hot peppers in an Indian restaurant represent a TIH?   
Can the govm't take away my hot peppers too?