Do not ever stop being against single crew member trains, as stated in your Monday editorial. As an airline transport-rated pilot I would never expect to see/hear about an airliner being operated by one person.
Check out the reason for the disaster last year in Canada where the train was unmanned and went for several miles before hitting something big enough to derail it and cause the tank cars to rupture.
If my memory is correct, there is supposed to be a “dead man’s pedal” in the cab that the engineer must hold down with his foot in order that the engine can be moved. What happened in Montreal? Never a word about it.
Just like the Skagit County bridge, someone did not tell the driver of the low clearances and that he had to be in the inside lane. Who “forgot” to tell him? A state employee? There were two people involved, the driver and the pilot car, yet the bridge got hit about 25 minutes after myself, my wife and our grandson went over it. Safety is not cheap, but it is a requirement in life.
In fact, I think there should be two engineers in the cab so that if one misses an object, like a truck in a crossing, the other catches it and applies the brakes, or just yells out: Oh,——. Yeah, fill in the word. The other reason for a second person is to catch a trap or sabotage. We live in a different world now and must take care where, in the past, no one ever thought of such stuff, like a bomb in an airplane, etc.
Richard Jauch
Camano Island
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