Comment by gpvos
1 day ago
My thoughts as well. It appears that such signal failures happen so often that the controllers regularly let trains run through red under verbal authorization. I don't know the exact protocols, but I would expect a driver to ask for confirmation, as happened here, and then trust the control centre. However, there is clearly a huge systemic problem, with added complexity for the controllers, and there should at least be double checks in the control centre.
The person who controls whether the light shows red or green and gives verbal authorization is the same. It's both a tool, to transmit the same information.
Same information, no.
A person saying you have a green light when you have a red light is not the same information at all. The probability that something has gone wrong and will lead to disaster is many many times higher.
That's also true, but you should also be able to trust written movement authorities, otherwise why have them in the first place?
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