Comment by 1718627440

1 day ago

> From the controller to the driver, every single one of them should have said hey we shouldn't just ignore a signal

A train driver has zero insight in what is going on and where other trains are. They do need to trust the orders they get, if you want to question every order you will never start to drive.

The train driver's job is to say: "it's red, I'm no moving, not my problem, you make it green if you want me to go"

That's why it's a union job

Also he's the first person to die on accident so it's that and the safety of everyone else

They do not 'need' to follow others, they just need to refuse unless all safe and green.

If they never start to drive it's the companies problem to deal with angry non-dead customers

  • That is not how the procedures work, so the driver would be fired as soon as they did that.

    Every train network has situations where drivers are authorised to proceed against a red signal. Not usually at full speed though.

    • They wouldn't get fired. They are protected both in the US and Spain.

      At most face unlikely discipline.

      Here they would even have valid reason to refuse - order was given for full speed, regulation says low speed ready to stop.

      So a "No, i'm not doing that, you're moron" would be justified.

      14 replies →

  • > The train driver's job is to say: "it's red, I'm no moving, not my problem, you make it green if you want me to go"

    A written movement authority is a signal as well in railway terms. It's more like "I don't trust your second traffic light, that you placed next to the normal one, because the normal one is broken".