Quote:
Originally Posted by SteamWake
The bleepers go off as you approach signals. Kind of a reminder to take the time to actually look at the signal.
In fact if you enter a 'restricted' section a buzzer goes off and keeps going off till you silence it. If it is not silenced the train is stopped automatically.
US rails do not use this system. They believe and rightfully so in my opinion that they dont need a gizmo to make sure the drivers awake. I guess I am wrong.
As to the dead mans brake, it is / was not uncommon to find a tool box atop them to hold them down  |
Ah yes, I recognise the system, we call it AWS. It could be that because it's a metro service they deign it not worthy to install the vigilence systems. I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think that on our underground (well, London at least) there isn't a AWS system per se, but the red signals do have tripcocks on them so that if a train should happen to pass it the emergancy brakes are automatically tripped, the mainline services have a similar thing now called TPWS which activates the emergancy brakes if a train approaches a speed restriction at too high a speed or SPADs.
It's very much a trial and error thing, regrettably, it's taken the British network several nasty crashes (Moorgate in particular comes to mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorgate_tube_crash ) before we have got the systems we have, and other nations have even better systems but even they are not fool-proof.
I do hope that they can implement some kind of vigilence system in the DC Metro though, but at the end of the day, the direction must come from the top. Do the US drivers have unions? If so, how much sway do they hold? They're not exactly the best answer, but sometimes if you want the idiots who write the cheques to listen, they're additional firepower to help.