Comment by dogscatstrees
15 hours ago
> the dispatcher who greenlit the cab driver to go full speed ahead after the train control system on that track had crashed even though they knew that another train was reporting that it was unable to restart and get going
Apologies in advance for what may be a pedantic and possibly dumb question, but is there a failsafe or guardrail against such forced errors?
Not if drivers switch to full manual control. For the ETCS control system:
- in normal mode (Full Supervision) the driver's actions are monitored and unsafe operations lead to an emergency brake
- but there is a fully manual mode (Staff Responsible) which does exactly that - the driver is fully responsible for what they do. If they get bad instructions from the control center, no technical barrier against crashes exist.
Older systems like LZB usually are even more permissible.