Well, the usual drivel from the Transportation Safety Board has arrived regarding the deaths of two women in Whitby, On., when, 17-months ago, CP Rail Train #239 derailed and several loaded container cars crashed over a highway overpass crushing the victims.
The report will no doubt contain a boxcar full of recomendations meant to prevent such tragedy occuring again. But it won't contain the one recommendation that might actually address the problem of broken -or disintegrating- wheels breaking the track as they pass. So here it is:
Bring back the caboose.
Startling, isn't it? Imagine; an extra tail-end car, specifically for human occupation, equipped with both an auxillary brake valve and an emergency stand-by channel radio -both for the use of the qualified conductor whose job it would be -indeed WAS at one time- to observe the condition of his or her train as it rounded curves -all from an elevated vantage in the 'cupola' of the caboose.
No, the Transportation Safety Board won't go there simply because the railways don't want them to go there and the railways are much, much bigger and more powerful than the Transportation Safety Board could ever dream of being.
How sad for the families of those two women...
The report will no doubt contain a boxcar full of recomendations meant to prevent such tragedy occuring again. But it won't contain the one recommendation that might actually address the problem of broken -or disintegrating- wheels breaking the track as they pass. So here it is:
Bring back the caboose.
Startling, isn't it? Imagine; an extra tail-end car, specifically for human occupation, equipped with both an auxillary brake valve and an emergency stand-by channel radio -both for the use of the qualified conductor whose job it would be -indeed WAS at one time- to observe the condition of his or her train as it rounded curves -all from an elevated vantage in the 'cupola' of the caboose.
No, the Transportation Safety Board won't go there simply because the railways don't want them to go there and the railways are much, much bigger and more powerful than the Transportation Safety Board could ever dream of being.
How sad for the families of those two women...
