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Amtrak Crash Near 30th St Stn.
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by MargaretSPfan: [QB] I am profoundly relieved that all criminal charges have been dropped against Brandon Bostian. Treating him like a common criminal was a travesty of justice. That poor man. And -- Every. Single. Time. that any train has an accident and either things get badly damaged and / or people get hurt and maybe killed, the railroad's management *always* "throws the engineer under the bus". With this as the horrible reality, why on earth would anyone even think for one minute of being a locomotive engineer? I know -- the paycheck, but, really -- being a locomotive engineer nowadays forces every engineer to gamble with his or her future. Seems as though this society has gone from "innocent until proven guilt" as what most people believe to the Napoleonic "guilty until proven innocent" as what most people assume. What a shame. And because of this horrible reality, and just the human need to find someone to blame, and right away, all locomotive engineers are, in a way, playing Russian roulette with their lives by being locomotive engineers. None of this means that I do not want all incidents properly investigated by impartial and very qualified investigators of high integrity. Then, and only then, decide whether or not the engineer was really at fault. But this garbage of automatically throwing the engineer to the wolves has got to stop. NOW. Footnote to this discussion: There is a lot of evidence that Bostian's train and two other passenger trains were shot at that night. Do any of you think for one minute that you could control a train if you were being shot at? And the FRA's glazing regs require -- as far as bullet-resistance goes -- that the glazing be able to stop a bullet no larger than 22 caliber from penetrating the glazing. No FRA-approved glazing can stop any bullet larger than 22 caliber from penetrating the glazing. No, I have no idea how large the bullets were that were being fired at Bostian's train, but they may well have been much larger than 22 caliber. Also, it is fact that during the gunfire, Bostian pushed himself away from the engineer's console and in doing so, apparently pushed the throttle away from him, which made the train speed up. He hit his head and was knocked unconscious for 15 minutes. His head wound required 14 stitches to close. Of course he was not able to remember what happened during that time. He was unconscious! All this was reported +right after the accident. So, no, there was NO criminal intent on Bostian's part, and prosecuting him for what happened was a huge travesty, and a huge miscarriage of justice. But people were crying for blood and wanted someone -- anyone -- punished, and FAST. So Bostian paid the expected high price. He even had to do a "perp walk" - twice! -- outside the courtroom, just to pl;ease the media. For shame! (This case is why some of us call it our "criminal injustice system". Might makes right, and whoever has the best arguer (lawyer) who can the most skillfully and effectively play on a jury's emotions will win. What a shame.) [/QB][/QUOTE]
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