Re: NRC <> Brisbane to Sydney safeworking.

["Michael Walker" <walker@hotkey.net.au>]

>My objections are based on all the near misses in Vic / SA.
>
There have been plenty of misses and non-misses on the Victorian system with
so called manual safeworking systems too.
How do you explain:
Newport - Comeng rear ends a Werribee after going correctly through calling
on signal (allegedly / probably - inquest shall tell).
Syndal - Comeng rear ended a Hitachi after driver went through red signal.
The rules at the time stated that a driver could wait 10 seconds at a red
signal (I presume it was automatic signal) then could proceed at a speed
safe to be able to stop in time - which obviously didn't happen given the
nasty mess. There was some speculation at the time about faulty signalling
but from memory the above was found to be the case.
Something similar happened at Ringwood not long before too except this was
blamed on poor maintenance and faulty signalling.
Pakenham - suburban train rear ended goods train - where was the manual
safeworking here?

Manual systems aren't perfect either - if they were, there should be NO
accidents.