Re: Glenbrook Driver cleared (newspaper article)

[pdwyer <pdwyerNOpdSPAM@ecn.net.au.invalid>]

>Why would train drivers be different?
>
>No doubt there were many contributing factors to this incident
and the
>inquiry will want to identify all of them to maximise all the
lessons that
>can be learned.

But train drivers aren't different. The railway industry is.

Rail Safety is supposedly paramount in Australian Railway
institutions. This means they tend to follow the old British
Railway method of not blaming the most obvious, and holding long
winded inquiries into the Root Cause of an accident.

Sever Rail accidents are usually, without fail, a series of
minor infractions by one or more persons leading up to the
accident. The idea is for the inquiry to locate and pinpoint
each point of failure in the system, and work out how these may
be overcome.

This is why signalling systems change, people are people & will
continue to bypass "fool proof" systems until the end of this
planet.

Short answer to the big question - why did this accidnet happen?

Reason: The driver a received a remark from his nominal superior
to mean that an equipment failure was the cause of his delay. He
was given no indication that a train was present. Therefore he
drove to the next signal as best as he could.

That's the primary reason, all else is smoke and mirrors until
the enquiry can develop a reasonable method to avoid a
recurrence.

If they think that is by removing the driver, so be it. If it is
the requirement for better train location systems for the Train
Controller, so be it.

People wishing to hang the driver for the speed of the accident
are barking up the wrong tree.




Got questions?  Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com