Yes, there are. But they are passive systems, not proactive. In other words, they alert trains using lights (red means stop, green go, and yellow says proceed with caution/half speed,) but do not have the ability to control a train in lew of the operator. Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time this has happened. In fact, it happens more often than anyone would feel comfortable with. But 999 times out of 1000, the train operators see the signals and stop before trouble occurs. And even then, completely missing the light and slamming a passenger train going 60 miles an hour into a freight train going less than 20 is that one in a million which just happened. Statistically speaking, train travel is by far the safest way to travel. It is actually twenty times safer than airline travel for one simple reason: if it crashes, only a fraction of the people aboard (nearly 250 in this case) gets hurt or killed, vs. everyone on board getting turned into casket material
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A terrible tragedy indeed. Aggravating though, is the evidence that suggests the Metrolink engineer was texting on his cell phone in the moments prior to the collision
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Aren't there warning systems in place to know when two trains are on the same track?
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Aggravating though, is the evidence that suggests the Metrolink engineer was texting on his cell phone in the moments prior to the collision
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