A WRECK OF A THREAD

[ZEROSPHERES]

Now a report has surfaced of a Southbound Amtrak train being targeted earlier that same night in that corridor. This makes three the number of trains reporting possible strikes by foreign objects.

http://7online.com/news/ntsb-interviewed...ve/718120/

NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said the board was seeking more information about a third report of damage that night, this one involving a different Amtrak train.

Not long before the derailment, two passengers on a southbound Amtrak told The Philadelphia Inquirer that something shattered a window on their train as it passed through the same area. They said Amtrak police boarded the train at 30^th Street station in Philadelphia to document the incident.

The NTSB says it has interviewed the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia and found him "extremely cooperative." But it says engineer Brandon Bostian said he couldn't recall what happened in the crash.

Bostian's lawyer said earlier his client suffered a concussion in the wreck and had no recollection of it. He said Bostian hadn't been using his cellphone and hadn't been drinking or using drugs.

[ZEROSPHERES]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/amtrak-...ed-n358551

[Duchess]

Faggot

[HairOfTheDog]

I think the "projectile hit the windshield" theory, even if it's true, is pretty much irrelevant to determining culpability for the accident.

It doesn't appear that Bostian was hit or knocked unconscious by a projectile; no sign anything penetrated the window.

And, it's looking like the co-conductor who told investigators she thought she overheard him reporting that something had hit the window is mistaken. According to the latest report, dispatch has no record of any such report. Ref: http://www.wsj.com/articles/amtrak-engin...1431879464

[Maggot]

I would like to know how fast other trains had gone around that corner recently. Does it happen routinely and is this the one that went off finally.

[ZEROSPHERES]

I would like to know how fast other trains had gone around that corner recently. Does it happen routinely and is this the one that went off finally.

I ride that route frequently but only from 30^th Street Station to the point where Amtrak 188 derailed (the Frankford Jct). At that juncture my train turns east and crosses the Delaware River into New Jersey. We have never traveled faster than 40 mph there and never faster than 60 mph from 30^th Street to that Frankford Jct (site of the derailment). I understand the speed controls have always been in effect for southbound Amtrak trains approaching this corridor since the tracks it's travelling on (north of this congested 30^th Street-Frankford Jct) corridor are straightened out and have a 100+ speed capability. The northbound 30^th Street-Frankford Jct corridor trains never were regulated because any engineer who was looking out would see the area cannot support that kind of speed and it's such a short distance between those two points (an engineer using prudent conduct) it's all but impossible to achieve that velocity. The criticism the Mayor directed at the engineer well be accurate and justified when he spoke early on in his news briefs. IMO the engineer upon leaving 30^th Street and crossing the Schuylkill River did a "Ron Popeil Set It and Forget It" and only realized his mistake when he felt the overwhelming Centrifugal force of the train entering that Frankford curve and then (and only then) was he aware of his error and attempted to to apply the emergency brakes. Too Late.

[ZEROSPHERES]

I think the "projectile hit the windshield" theory, even if it's true, is pretty much irrelevant to determining culpability for the accident.

It doesn't appear that Bostian was hit or knocked unconscious by a projectile; no sign anything penetrated the window.

It looks to me that every effort is being made to excuse Bostian from responsibility for this crash. First the attempt to blame a projectile. When that didn't work the union is now blaming management.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...-to-drive/

A labor union says the engineer of the train was likely fatigued because of Amtrak's cost-driven schedule changes. "We feel 100 percent confident that the issue of the new schedule, the reduced rest period and layover period for this young man, was an immediate and direct contribution to this incident," Fritz Edler, chair of the local committee of adjustment for the BLET's Division 482, said in an interview Friday. "Fatigue is a cumulative problem. So if you have a bad day yesterday, it’s going to be that much harder to do your job today. And that’s the kind of situation [Bostian] was up against."

[ZEROSPHERES]

[HairOfTheDog]

AMTRAK DERAILMENT INVESTIGATION -- UPDATE

Although it will be months before the NTSB issues a formal report on the cause of the crash, the focus of the investigation appears to have narrowed to Bostian’s actions. Hart told the committee that there was no indication of problems with the locomotive, track, braking or signal system.

Federal investigators looking into the Amtrak derailment that killed eight people and injured scores of others in Philadelphia last month are trying to determine whether the engineer was using his cellphone when his train approached a curve at more than twice the speed limit.

Christopher A. Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a congressional committee Tuesday that investigators want to know whether train engineer Brandon Bostian, 32, was texting or speaking on the phone as his locomotive accelerated to 106 mph into the bend.

“We know that there is text and voice activity on that day,” Hart said. “We’re trying to narrow down [the time frame]. We were surprised by the complexity ourselves, and we’re experts on this.”

Bostian, through his attorney, said after the May 12 crash that his cellphone was inside his backpack in compliance with federal rules.

Hart said Tuesday that a seemingly simple matter — getting a time stamp on phone calls and text messages — was complicated by the fact that Bostian’s cellphone carrier was three time zones away in California.

“And we found [time] discrepancies within the carrier’s own system,” Hart said.

He also said that the clock in the train’s data recorder might show an incrementally different time from that shown on Bostian’s phone.

“We need technology that can step in when humans fail,” Hart said.

Sarah Feinberg, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, told the committee that within weeks her agency would roll out plans to control for human error.

“Speed, simply put, is what we refer to as a human factor,” said Feinberg, who was nominated by the Obama administration to become permanent head of the FRA.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/traf...story.html

[HairOfTheDog]

CHINESE CRUISE SHIP CAPSIZED --OVER 400 PASSENGERS MISSING

A Chinese cruise ship carrying 458 people capsized in the Yangtze River during a severe storm Monday night.

Search and rescue workers have so far found 19 survivors, along with some dead bodies. But, divers are still searching for the over 400 people still missing.

The search area has been expanded up to 220 km (135 miles) downstream, state television said, suggesting that bodies could have been swept far away from where the ship foundered in the rain-swollen river.

Three of the bodies were found 50 km (30 miles) away near Yueyang city in neighboring Hunan province.





The ship was on an 11-day voyage upstream from the city of Nanjing, near Shanghai, to Chongqing.

The search and rescue effort has been challenged by beds and furniture preventing workers from opening cabin doors.

The Eastern Star had been halted from sailing after inspections a few years back, but had apparently passed safety inspections since then.

China's weather bureau said a tornado had buffeted the area where the ship was cruising, a freak occurrence in a country where twisters can happen but are uncommon.

Li Yongjun, the captain of a freighter that passed near the Eastern Star shortly before it capsized, told Xinhua the weather was so bad he decided to anchor and wait out the storm.

"The visibility was terrible, like being in fog, and the rain was interfering with the radar so you couldn't make anything out," Li said.

The captain and chief engineer are among the rescued survivors and have been detained by police for questioning. An initial investigation found the ship was not overloaded and had enough life vests on board.

The ship overturned "within one or two minutes", the captain is quoted as saying. He was dragged out of the water near a pier just before midnight on Monday. A surviving passenger also told reporters that the ship was under in a matter of only minutes.

Relatives of the missing, angry at what they perceive as a lack of information, have scuffled with officials in Shanghai. All of the passengers on board had booked their trips through a Shanghai-based travel agency.

About two dozen family members, some crying and others shouting "help us", protested and marched down streets in central Shanghai on Wednesday towards the main government office, watched by a heavy contingent of police.

Premier Li called for "regular and transparent updates" on the rescue and investigation, and said authorities must ensure adequate personnel and funding.

Refs:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/0...LU20150603
http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/06/02/p...gtze-river
----------------------
The families of these passengers have gotta be going through hell.

There is still hope that more survivors will be located, but the hope is dimming as the hours pass.

[HairOfTheDog]

CHINESE CAPSIZE DISASTER -- UPDATE


The Eastern Star cruise ship is upright once again, looking almost normal with its bottom resting on the water and its deck and cabins clear above it.

The ship's positioning Friday was a step forward in the days-long nightmare playing out on a section of the Yangtze River that flows through Hubei province. It means answers should be easier to come by as to why the Eastern Star capsized Monday night and what can be done to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

It also means closure could be coming soon to hundreds of families.

By 6:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. ET) Friday, the body count stood at 103, according to Chinese state media. That's a tick up from previous days, but still a fraction of the 456 passengers who were on board, many of them in their 60s and 70s.

Fourteen of them survived. But rescuers have had no luck since Tuesday, when a 21-year-old sailor and 65-year-old woman were plucked from the water.

The chances of more miracles have dwindled with each passing day. And the salvage process has begun.

Meanwhile, rescuers continue their work. After going through the submerged, capsized ship for three days, they'll now theoretically be able to walk its decks and open spaces.

The idea is to go cabin by cabin, looking for people who may have, by chance, survived in a cranny inside -- and for the many who most certainly did not. It's all part of a huge operation involving nearly 150 other ships, 59 machines, over 3,400 Chinese troops and 1,700 paramilitary personnel, Xinhua said.

In addition to the human toll, there's an environmental toll from oil leaked into the Yangtze River, Transport Ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/asia/c...index.html
-------------------------------

For the sake of the families, I hope all of the bodies can be recovered for memorial. But, seems likely some will be lost at sea forever. RIP.

[Duchess]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/amtrak-...ed-n358551

Faggot

Why did you change the picture, Zero? You know damn well I wouldn't have posted faggot if it weren't in response to a faggot you posted and why present the engineer as a faggot in the first place? Do you know that he is a faggot?

[HairOfTheDog]

I see that the captions within the chops on the first page have been changed recently too.

My "pulling a choo choo" question in response to your original gay-mock image no longer makes sense either, Zero.

I understand if people wanna post personal pics and then remove them. But, to preserve the contextual integrity of the thread, I think posting a topical comment using a chop (with the text/caption imbedded) should obviously be subject to the same edit protocols as a regular text comment.

Just my 2 cents.

[HairOfTheDog]

AMTRAK CRASH -- INVESTIGATION RESULTS

The preliminary report was released this week. The NTSB has ruled out any mechanical error; it appears they're focusing on possible negligence by the Engineer, Bostian.

Snip:
The National Transportation Safety Board previously noted the train had been traveling at 106 mph before the emergency brake system engaged. Data from the train's event recorder "indicated that the engineer activated the emergency brakes seconds before the derailment," the report said.

Amtrak train 188 was traveling northbound from Washington, D.C., to New York City on May 12 when it derailed at 9:21 p.m. north of Philadelphia. The seven-car and one-locomotive train had just entered the Frankford Junction curve, where the speed limit is 50 mph.

NTSB said it's examining the Amtrak engineer's cell phone and cell phone records to determine whether the engineer made any calls, texted or sent messages while operating the train.

"Although the records appear to indicate that calls were made, text messages sent, and data used on the day of the accident, investigators have not yet made a determination if there was any phone activity during the time the train was being operated," the report said. "Investigators are in the process of correlating the time stamps in the engineer's cell phone records with multiple data sources including the locomotive event recorder, the locomotive outward facing video, recorded radio communications, and surveillance video."

NTSB is also investigating whether vandals threw rocks or other objects at passing trains around the time of the derailment. The Amtrak 188 locomotive windshield has impact damage, but investigators have not determined whether the damage was from a thrown object or the crash, the report said. NTSB and FBI found no evidence of damage caused by a gun, the report said.

8 passengers were killed and over 200 people were injured in the wreck.

Amtrak estimates the damage from the crash at $9.2 million.

Ref: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/.../28348719/

[Duchess]

I think posting a topical comment using a chop (with the text/caption imbedded) should obviously be subject to the same edit protocols as a regular text comment.

Of course it should be. Zero knows exactly what he's doing.

[HairOfTheDog]

I think posting a topical comment using a chop (with the text/caption imbedded) should obviously be subject to the same edit protocols as a regular text comment.

Of course it should be. Zero knows exactly what he's doing.

Zero's posts as soon as the story broke focused on mocking the engineer's sexual orientation. I didn't see anything in the news pieces about whether he was gay or not, and don't get the connection between his sexual orientation and the fatal accident anyway. But, she can focus as she sees fit and I didn't think much about it.

What's weird and kinda chickenshit to me is that after you reacted to her gay-mock images here, she started preaching to you in another thread about how mocking gays (or mocking the mocking of gays?) with words is "hate speech" and edited or swapped out her own gay-mocking images in this thread.

IDK. We all have to live with the comments we post and own our own shit here. I don't like that the thread context was altered by Zero and people can't reference what was originally posted and responded to by other posters.

I hope that Zero keeps posting but stops doing shit like that.

[username]

I wrote a long post but I've decided to be brief instead. You post a picture with a caption and then change it (thereby bypassing the15 minute edit rule), you're a cunt. Worse you're a big, fat chicken cowardly cunt. Or maybe ur Foghorn Leghorn. If I see that, soup chicken, not only will I put the pic back if I can, I will ride you so hard you'll BEG to be one of FU's bitches. Every day. That goes for the guys too.

Pussies piss me off.

Zero. You hear me?

[HairOfTheDog]

^ You definitely have a way with words and know how to make a point, user.

However, I fear you may have just inspired some of the Mock men to start doing that same shit with your promise to ride 'em hard, every day.

=========================
CHINESE SHIPWRECK UPDATE

The search teams have recovered most of the 450+ passengers who were aboard the capsized ship. Many were located inside the ship's cabins when it was pulled up and some were found in the water.


The search is still on for 8 missing passengers. Ship captains and sailors have also been advised to be on the look-out for floating bodies in the course of their travels.

The mortuary near the wreck site is providing hundreds of coffins for the families of the dead.


It's very sad to see the grief on the family members' faces.

[Jimbone]

I wrote a long post but I've decided to be brief instead. You post a picture with a caption and then change it (thereby bypassing the15 minute edit rule), you're a cunt. Worse you're a big, fat chicken cowardly cunt. Or maybe ur Foghorn Leghorn. If I see that, soup chicken, not only will I put the pic back if I can, I will ride you so hard you'll BEG to be one of FU's bitches. Every day. That goes for the guys too.

Pussies piss me off.

Zero. You hear me?

Somebody didn't have their two orgasms that day...

[Duchess]

I had never been called a cunt until Mock and I don't think I had ever used that word out loud but now I take some kind of perverse pleasure in occasionally typing it out. It looks lovely in calligraphy.