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Old 02-27-2010, 05:53 PM   #97
tw
Read? I only know how to write.
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
Quote:
Originally Posted by glatt View Post
There's something strange going on if the skid marks stop and then continue again.
Your picture shows the same thing. The bluing of steel rails are marked where it started and stopped. I can think of maybe five different reasons for this. For example, the braking system adjusts for maximum braking after first locking the wheels. Or the operator ran for her life (which is not supported by anything in witness testimony or in the operator's body). Or it is normal for bluing to stop once the wheels get so hot. Or ...

It simply remains a curious question. I saw nothing that explains that behavior.

Most curious is testimony of one 'sandaled' passenger sitting in the middle of the first car. He saw the front start collapsing. He ran. Whereby the floor and carpeting picked him up that placed him in the back of the car up in the ceiling. He was unhurt. And the guy sitting across from him who did not run also walked away unhurt. Another curiosity.

The investigation is done. Reason why this crash happened was even traced to oscillations from a push pull amplifier. Feedback that occurred only when installers increased output power. And explains why this problem also caused bobbing on other adjacent tracks five days before nine people were murdered.

So much information that I may have missed it: why rail 'bluing' is only in the first half of that crash.

BTW, also interesting is a train operator who literally disobeyed Central command (OCC) instructions to stop in Silver Springs. Who proceeded to the next station anyway. Attitude among Metro employees was (apparently) that bad. The train that nearly harmed investigators because it passed at full speed instead of a required 10 MPH - and was reported by the Washington Post. Both he and his supervisor were reprimanded for being that irresponsible. But it does not say what happened to them - how they were punished or retrained. Or if they were only doing what management encouraged.

Information in that safety investigation implies repeatedly why 40% of all rail fatalities occur on the Metro system. We should be discussing murder charges in Metro management.
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