The Tacoma News Tribune Editorial Board, August 27, suggests Sound Transit representatives – who met with the Lakewood City Council this week – want to “restore public confidence” in Amtrak before 79-mph trains are run (again) “through the heart” of Lakewood.
“Restore public confidence.”
“If they get their act together, they just might improve public peace of mind.”
‘They’ refers to the “four-layered bureaucracy”, as Lakewood City Councilman John Simpson described those who are “working to fix a broken safety culture.”
Safety. They’re working on it.
Working on the railroad.
“Taking a cautious approach”, you know, for negotiating curves and such.
This multi-tiered, multi-billion funded conglomerate, responsible to get rail passengers from A to B, has a safety culture?
One with “a safety chief”, as in responsible to ensure through due diligence the safety of those traveling those rails?
A “safety chief” who was fired last year and is yet to be replaced?
If there’s any good news from recent discussions as to when (unfortunately not ‘if’) Amtrak returns to the track through the heart of towns bordering I-5, it’s that the ‘when’ is unknown.
For the time being.
“There’s no timeline for putting trains back on the Point Defiance Bypass, Sound Transit representatives told Lakewood city officials this week.”
And that is because?
“A major safety reckoning is happening now.”
Well, good.
You know, safety and all that.
Meanwhile, “Mistrust and bad memories are still raw among some residents and local leaders from Dec. 18, 2017, the morning of Amtrak’s ill-fated maiden run on the Point Defiance Bypass,” writes the TNT.
Well, yes, you might say that.
Speaking for myself, and perhaps for the neighborhood I represent – one of the communities to be railed “through the heart”- here’s what I want to know.
I want to know whether apple juice is in fact made from apples.
Which is to suggest, by analogy, if railways are synonymous – assumed to be – with safety?
Selling fake apple juice to babies seemed a harmless way to make ends meet. After all, Beech-Nut executives rationalized, there was a budget to meet. And besides, said a company executive, “So suppose the stuff was all water and flavor and sugar? Why get so upset about it? Who were we hurting?”
The affliction – aka affluence – that ailed Beech-Nut, is the same that ails Amtrak, as both cut corners to meet their budget, the former – the watered-down version – described in their book “The Ethics Gap” by Joseph W. Cotchett with Stephen P. Pizzo.
It is subtitled “Greed and the Casino Society, The Erosion of Ethics in Our Professions, Business and Government.”
The book is dedicated to the small fish in the shark-infested pool who happen to believe the richest and most powerful giants too often “have lost their compass and become servants of greed.”
In the Beech-Nut case it took “four years and millions of gallons of juice” before the charade became clear – the company’s “‘100% Pure Apple Juice’ was a 100% fake.”
With Sound Transit, Amtrak, et al, it took one day.
The first train out of the station through the heart of the community never reached its destination.
Still hasn’t.
And trust?
Still hasn’t.
Never will.
Had that chance.
Once confidence has seriously, significantly been damaged, the erosion of ethics revealed through a cataclysmic event as a first-day derailment, you don’t get it back.
Ever.
Here following is the entirety of the quote attributed to Councilman Simpson as referenced in the article above:
“What I’d like to see in discussions going forward, besides the technology and engineering and four-layered bureaucracy, is some common sense,” said City Council member John Simpson. “Maybe if the train were to go through Lakewood at 30 mph like it goes through the (DuPont) curve at 30 mph, then some of us who actually live in the city and speak to the citizens of this city might feel a little bit better about this track bifurcating our city.”
What Kool Aid is the Sound Transit board drinking? In what La-La land are they living?
Safety?.,…pedestrians are still walking across the tracks at the Clover Creek intersection where there is no sidewalk to escape from vehicular traffic.
Thank you, John Simpson. I will never have confidence in decisions made by this board. A Public Relations isue?, Bah Humbug. The “Public” and common sense be damned,
Any Train in the USA going over 30 miles per hour is a deathtrap, period. The Old Steam Train braking technology is still present, Like in Drum Brakes that can’t stop this Iron Horse for Miles upon Miles. If you watch the trains from Europe, Germany, Japan, China, the Train won’t come Flying off the rails in a to fast for the corner, or if there’s a Earthquake, this is because they built in a locking device to keep the Train Safely in Place, and dynamic braking to stop a well engineered Iron Horse in the shortest distance allowed per speed allowed. Not the Junkyard passenger train’s here in America, Old drum brakes that after 30mph are worthless, and many miles later if its still on the tracks it comes to a halt with smoking brakes, some on fire, or not working at all. How about rotting rail ties, the big spikes that are supposed to hold the rails firmly to the tie are lifted up from vibration from year’s of worn out wheel bearing’s pounding on the tracks. A junkyard train system that dates from the early 1800’s, and is now Diesel-Electric, but has the same useless drum braking system as back then when 40mph was the fastest you should ever push a steam powered train in fear of running out of water for the boiler. All newer passenger trains in the other countries are advanced in Braking, passenger safety, comfort, Keeping the Train on the rails, and yes the Braking system. BNSF never showed there face when this accident hit the new’s worldwide, it was 4 day’s before our State WSP finally heard back from there point person, BNSF when into hiding, they hired a retired airline safety inspector to be there PR spokes person, what’s that say about who we are dealing with on this train route, anyone want to take a one way ride to Portland from Tacoma to test your LUCK, well hop on board then! If your still not sure, take your childs Radio Flyer wagon, find a big hill, give yourself a push and hold on, now look down the hill a way’s, do you see the big brown UPS truck stuck sideways on the road ahead, start yelling, because that’s the last time you will every ride in that wagon again. What a bad dream you just had, arn’t you lucky that it was just a dream!!!!