Commentary

While we’re waiting, Administrator Feinberg

While we’re waiting for the NTSB to analyze the event recorder data and forward-facing camera video on the NJ Transit cab car involved in the Sept. 29 Hoboken Terminal crash, assuming there is useable information (there is no data from the locomotive event recorder, because it was non-operational), let’s jump ahead a year or two and anticipate the conclusion of the NTSB’s investigation and the list of forthcoming recommendations.

Commentary

Preventing, not chasing, the ambulance

The Sept. 29th NJ Transit accident in Hoboken will, of courser, trigger another round of the now-usual “how could its,” “should nevers,” “told yous,” “failure to properly regulates,” “lack of trusts,” “insufficient crew members,” “inadequate trainings” “cost/benefits,” from the usual parties, most of whom are motivated by the best of intentions, which just happen to coincide with some strictly personal agendas, or strictly organizational agendas, or election needs, and . . .

Commentary

Hillary and Trump, are you paying attention to us?

Hey, Mr. Trump! Yeah you! The guy with the odd orange hairdo. You interested in supporting an American industry that invests billions of private capital, building worthwhile things, instead of constructing that ridiculous, narcissism-inspired, “beautiful” Mexico-financed wall you want to erect on our border with a valued NAFTA partner?

Commentary

STB dysfunction menaces revenue adequacy

If you think a theater of the absurd is limited to presidential candidates less popular than the Grinch who stole Christmas, you’re missing Surface Transportation Board (STB) dysfunction where Chairman Dan Elliott’s leadership is infuriating fellow Democrat Deb Miller and Republican member Ann Begeman.

Commentary

Pokémon Go walk in front of a moving train

It’s unsettling, and very weird, I tell you. People—children, adults, teenagers—walking around, even driving, oblivious to their surroundings, fixated on their smartphones, looking for goofy little virtual characters called Pokémons (is that short for “poke me in the eye”?).

Commentary

Déjà vu once again for intermodal

Watching Washington, August 2016 Railway Age: Between the euphoria of achievement and the agony of despair resides intermodal—the rail carriage of trailers and containers that have prior and/or subsequent transport by other modes. It’s no new kid on the block.

Commentary

So what does the “X” in “CSX” really mean?

Last December, in my From the Editor magazine column (“Time to choose a name,” December 2015), I attempted to explain how CSX was named.

Commentary

PTC, legacy train control and vitality

Steve Ditmeyer’s article “PTC vs. Legacy Train Control Redux” is very thought-provoking. Yes, Congress did define PTC by functionality, not technology. No, PTC need not be tied to fixed wayside block signals (interlockings are a whole other issue).

Commentary

It can’t happen over there

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard or read or been told how much safer rail transportation is in Europe than it is in the United States.

Commentary

Labor’s not-so-smart gamble on FRA

News items: A convoy of self-driving trucks recently traversed Europe. Driverless trucks are undergoing public-road testing in California and Nevada. And Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx supports development of vehicles “that can drive themselves better than a human.” Baby boomers may be skeptical, but not digital-native millennials.

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