What do you mean, "expect no new lines to launch"? The article says that the safety systems in question are being installed and will be ready relatively soon, but they chose to start service without them. Delaying a new service for a little while to wait for such things to be installed seems pretty reasonable!
Define "relatively soon". In particular, how likely do you consider a delay? How likely do you consider a delay after that? You could wind up waiting several years, while your "ready to go" line just sits there, eating up maintenance costs but not being used.
Also, define "ready". Is it ready when it's running, but is only 75% likely to actually stop a train if needed because of various bugs? (Note well: I do not know what PTC's bug track record is. I just know that such systems often have bugs that take a while to work out.)
In the real world, projects that wait for everything to be ready before they ship at all are often very late.
On the other hand, you don't ship something without basic safety features. So it all depends on whether you view PTC as a basic safety feature. (After the crash, it's easy to say "obviously it is", but I'm not sure that it's fair to use hindsight that way. PTC was supposed to be a small increment of safety to an already quite safe mode of transportation.)
How likely are delays in other parts of the project? There are plenty of things that could be delayed and would physically prevent train service from running on the line. Is it really such a massive risk to to say that safety equipment must be installed before operations begin, even if the train could potentially make the run without it?
I don't know about that "quite safe" thing. I looked up the stats in another comment in this tree and they look pretty bad for trains.
It seems less reasonable when you compare the safety of train travel to the safety of automobile travel, and when you consider that every time a new passenger route is opened it takes cars off the road. Yes there are train wrecks, and yes, PTC would have prevented this specific wreck, but trains remain one of the safest modes of transit.
Train fatalities tend to be clumped so the stats tend to vary a lot from one year to the next, but it looks like in recent years the typical rate is something like 5 fatalities per 100 million passenger-miles. The car data only gives fatalities per vehicle-mile for some reason, but that will always be a pessimistic number (at least until autonomous cars happen), and that rate is just a bit over 1 fatality per 100 million vehicle-miles.
It looks like cars are quite a bit safer, unless I've misunderstood something. The absolute number of fatalities is far lower for trains, but the number of passenger miles per year is also far lower.
One issue is that the motor vehicle fatalities table seems to include data from buses (that is how I understand the references), which are safer than cars. I tried looking at the sources for the passenger rail data but a quick glance was not very informative.
Here is another study, from 2010, showing some very different numbers:
PTC wouldn't have just prevented this specific wreck, PTC would have prevented like 9 of the last 10 fatal train wrecks in the USA. Every single fatal wreck that happened since Obama pushed back the mandate would have been avoided by PTC.
Let's assume you are right, and that in the past three years PTC would have prevented the majority of fata train wrecks. How many fatalities are you talking about? How many lives should we expect PTC to save over the next decade?
The more important question is this: how many automobile fatalities could be prevented if we took the billions of dollars being spent on PTC and spent it building a new commuter rail line that took hundreds of cars off the road every day?
Make sure to build it up to at least 1950s standards in safety. Many parts of US rail do not feature even basics. They rely on the driver and signals only...
Well, if they hadn't started service on this line they would have continued service on the old line, which also doesn't have PTC, so it's not exactly a net loss. This new line is a sort of bypass meant to replace an older one.
The fact that they safely operated on the old track for years, then had a horrible crash on their very first run on the new track, makes me think it really did make a big difference. It's possible that this was just a horrible coincidence, but it seems more likely that something about the new line made it riskier. Maybe just the fact that the driver is less familiar with it?
Allowing operations to start on a new line before important safety equipment has been installed is also a good way to make that installation happen very late. If you say "you cannot operate until this is done," it has a way of motivating people to get it done. If you say "you can operate now, just try to get it done" then it may take quite a long time to actually happen.
I'm not sure what point you're making. If a new line is more dangerous then isn't that a pretty good argument for delaying its use until the safety systems are installed?
You said that delaying the start of the new line until PTC was installed seems pretty reasonable.
roywiggins replied that the line being replaced also didn't have PTC, so that switching to the new line meant swapping a line without PTC for another line without PTC, which is a net wash.
You replied "It's possible that this was just a horrible coincidence, but it seems more likely that something about the new line made it riskier. Maybe just the fact that the driver is less familiar with it?" I presume that you're still arguing here for waiting until PTC was installed.
I replied. Since you didn't seem to understand my reply, let me try again.
There are lots of things that could make a new line more dangerous. Some of them could be fixed by PTC. Some of them would not. So unless you know that the cause of the crash is something that PTC would have prevented, then "the new line is more dangerous" does not imply "wait for PTC".
Why is the new line more dangerous? Is it because it has a curve? The other line had far more. Is it because the new line had a curve that was lower speed than the rest of the line? It's possible that the other line had so many curves that there never was a place for fast running, and therefore that there never was a curve that you could be suckered into coming into too fast.
Is the new line more dangerous because people aren't familiar with it? Well, that's what months of training runs are for. (They did do months of training runs, didn't they?)
It's possible that the cause is a combination of all of this: A tight curve in the middle of a fast stretch, and engineers unfamiliar with the route ran into the curve too fast. If that's all true, then yes, PTC probably would have prevented the crash.
Also note that all this is hindsight. When making the decision to open the new line, was it obvious that the new line (without PTC) was more dangerous than the old line (also without PTC)? Probably not. If anything, I suspect that the thinking was that the new line would be less dangerous - it wouldn't be cluttered up with a bunch of freight trains, running on a line without PTC, where a mistake could squish a passenger train. So if the thinking in advance is that the new line is at least as safe, and plausibly safer, even without the safety equipment, why would you wait?
That's pure speculation with a million seemingly unfounded assumptions behind it.
My reasoning is pretty simple: since this crash happened on the very first run, and PTC would have prevented it, it looks probable that the danger of PTC-preventible crashes was substantially higher on the new line. I don't know about the reasons or causes or potential mitigations, I'm just looking at the outcome.
It is possible that it's just a horrible coincidence. But that's not the way to bet.
You're right that it's all hindsight. We can't go back in time and push back the opening of the new line or push forward the installation of PTC. What we can do is convert this hindsight into foresight for the next time.
Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
At the moment, it looks likely that your statement is correct. But I've seen at least one source claiming that the speed data (where they got the 81 MPH from) isn't continuous data, and therefore isn't necessarily reporting the speed from when the train entered the curve. Note well: I do not know the truth of this claim. (I also don't know the truth of the 81 MPH claim.)
We'll know if PTC would have prevented it when the NTSB produces some concrete conclusions. Until then, I think you're taking speculation and regarding it as concrete data.
You could be right, though. You could be right in every detail. But I think you're stating your case as if it's certain, and I don't think certainty is warranted yet.
