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Path: utzoo!snell
From: snell@utzoo.UUCP (Richard Snell)
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: VIA rail train collides head-on with freight. 
Message-ID: <6389@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 14:03:36 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6389
Posted: Tue Feb 11 14:03:36 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Feb-86 14:03:36 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 36


As you may well have read, a VIA rail train crashed head on into a freight
train at a combined speed of some 200km/hour a few days ago in MBAlberta.

Extrordinarily, some 100 people survived this, with (current estimates) some
30-50 people being killed.  Of the freight train crew of 3, seems that only
the conductor survived.

Initial investigations indicate.

1. The freight may have ignored 2 signals not to proceed (it is not known yet
   if drinking was involved...).
2. Freight trains share tracks throughout the system with passenger trains.
3. The accident occurred just after the passenger train left double tracks
   for the single tracks which proceed through the mountains.
4. Freight trains in Canada do not run on schedules.  
   They simply proceed as signal
   lights dictate.  Only passenger trains have schedules.

So, a few questions arises (among many...)
and this may have been discussed on the net but I am a fairly new reader of
this group

1. Does Amtrak share tracks with freights?
2. Do American freights run on schedules?
3. Are there shut off levers (as on many (ALL?) subway systems) which throw
   the break on immediately if a train runs a red light?  (Otherwise, with
   should the engineer have a heart attack, for instance, 
   the train would just keep rolling).  The press is not yet indicating
   whether such a system was in place on the freight, but it appears the
   engineer was alone at the time of the accident.
-- 
Name:   Richard Snell
Mail:   Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:   {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!snell