Re: Beresfield Accident Findings

["Tezza" <tezza@atinet.com.au>]

Eddie Oliver wrote in message <51171073$Eddie.Oliver@efs.mq.edu.au>...
>Bob <gioia@fastlink.com.au> wrote:


>>  One option under sreious consideration is to use the same system that is
used
>>in the suburban area with trips at all signals. This would stop any train
that
>>passes a stick at stop. The RSA and rail acess are all for this idea as it
will
>>create hundreds of millions of dollars of work for them. The question is
who
>>would pay for this? As we live in a bankrupt state because of the bloody
Olympic
>>games it is unlikeley that this will happen. What is likeley however is
the lets
>>hope they forget attitude and do nothing. My money is on this one!

>I cannot imagine that even the most idiotic members of the RSA or RAC are
>thinking of installing trip stops on signals outside electrified areas. The
mechanical
>stresses on such things would be enormous; trains would be tripped all the
time
>from hitting objects other than the trips (imagine how many times a coal
loco  would
>hit a piece of coal!) and the recurrent damage from primitive emergency
braking of huge
>coal trains would be enormous.



Why would locos be hitting pieces of coal? It's actually carried in the
trucks behind the locos, not alongside the track. And minimal damage caused
by emergency braking (I've never seen any), would be far better than a
freight train running into a passenger train.

>AFAIK no railway in the world uses trip devices for heavy trains.

>Cab signalling and various forms of automatic train control are widespread,
but please
>don't reduce this to the trivial level of mechanical "trip" type train
stops.



Railway motto: When only the best will do, let's get the cheapest even
though it'll always end up costing us more.