Comment by 1718627440

> Then what the fuck is this country even doing with trains.

That has nothing to do with a single country. Above 40km/h you are not allowed to drive on sight in a lot of countries. I don't know how it is in Spain, but in Germany, you are also not allowed to drive via track-side signals above 160km/h. You can simply not decide about where it is safe to go from inside the train.

> Interlock safety systems exist for a reason

Yes, and that's a job of the dispatcher, not of the driver.

> In any safety system where the interlock is down you do not resume standard operations.

That might be nice in theory, but that has not much to do with reality. There is simply always something broken. It doesn't even need to be a signal, way more often a crossing doesn't properly report that it is closed.

> The person behind the break and speed control of the train is no different from the captain of the airplane or the captain of a ship.

Nah, it's very different. For one a captain or pilot can control the direction of the ship/plane. They can also determine whether their operation range is clear. A train driver can do none of these things. What's the point of making them responsible for safety if they neither have the knowledge, nor the lever to change things? Trains are more secure, because the driver is not responsible for the infrastructural safety, not less. That includes whether the track is clear or not.