That driver really wanted to believe that the Yellow Line already goes to Vancouver.

good lord. On the one hand, I can't believe that little ramp thing actually stopped the train.

On the other hand, it crashed hard enough that it shook the camera like it was in an earthquake. And presumably that camera is mounted on a post or a building or something else that is anchored with a concrete foundation...

I'm just surprised that our world-famous and supposedly state-of-the-art billion dollar lightrail system doesn't have some kind of automatic braking system for the ends of the line. Even if it was a cable arresting gear like the they used on old aircraft carriers it would be better than letting the train plow headlong into the barrier. The article quotes a TriMet spokesman, "A 'couple of people' were on the train when it crashed, but no one was injured." Imagine if it had been crowded.

My guess is that ATS magnets will be installed at the end of the lines now. (They have the all over the rest of the lines to prevent speeding and collisions, why not at the end?)

I heard the driver was distracted by a crying baby.

"And now here's the Traveling Wilburys with End of the Line."

There’s only one reason an organization doesn’t want you to know something or doesn’t want to open a meeting to you. They’re helping the people who have the information and screwing over the people who don’t.

Holy cow, that thing really hit that barrier at high speed, from the description I assumed it was a slow, low-impact kinda thing. Crazy.

Driver going for a new high score on Angry Birds? Or just enjoying a good paperback?

Silly of me I know, but this is a TriMet public record and there is no privilege which attaches to it.

TriMet has no business chewing on "Al the Blogging Bus Driver" or anyone else for having it, or for passing it on to anyone either by web posting, or by E mailing it to anyone.

Of course not. But it's Tri-Met, where the instinct is never to tell the public the truth about anything.

Dam, that was a big ouch! Did somebody grease the tracks?

Of course not. But it's Tri-Met, where the instinct is never to tell the public the truth about anything.

It's not just Tri-Met.

How many fare increases does it take to pay for a hundred whiplash claimants?

So the whistle blower gets suspended and nothing has yet happened to the driver of the train?
What's with that?

Re video is now off the O site too.
The officials atnTriMet are fools and cowards.

I'm just surprised that our world-famous and supposedly state-of-the-art billion dollar lightrail system doesn't have some kind of automatic braking system for the ends of the line. Even if it was a cable arresting gear like the they used on old aircraft carriers it would be better than letting the train plow headlong into the barrier.

My guess is that ATS magnets will be installed at the end of the lines now

The rail stop IS the barrier (like the cable arresting gear...that is STILL used on aircraft carriers today, and in fact the same cable arresting equipment is installed on runway 28L/10R at PDX and can be used by the military pilots for training and emergencies, although it's seldom deployed. (If you look at Google Earth imagery - but don't look at the most current imagery as the runway is under construction, you'll see a series of yellow dots across the runway at either end, 1600 feet from the west end and 2000 feet from the east end. That's where the cable arresting gear is deployed if needed.)

I'm not sure another ATS magnet would be effective - there are already ATS magnets preceding entering the station, so the train was clearly entering at about 20 MPH or slower. Even at that speed, there would still need to be sufficient room beyond the ATS magnet to allow for a safe stop prior to hitting the barrier.

What is interesting to note is that both Gresham (Cleveland Avenue) and Clackamas Town Center have tail tracks that extend beyond the station platform for some distance, so if a train overruns the platform there is still a short distance before the end of track; however at PDX a train that doesn't stop will run into a passenger platform or the airport structure itself; at Hillsboro there's a brick building at the end of track. What would have happened if the incident happened at either of those locations? At PDX, if a train runs through the wall (on the left track) it would breach the sterile area for the A and B Concourses and cause a security nightmare (effectively shutting down MAX access to the airport until a solid barrier could be erected to keep the concourse sterile). Imagine the security nightmare!!!

Al got put on paid leave, but the MAX operator driving the train in the video (i would assume) was already on paid leave.

anyways, I, for one, believe Al's story that he initially posted the video thinking that it was in the public domain. Why would he have posted the video if he knew it was stolen/ he stole it? He would know better that if the video was stolen that it would cause trouble like it has.

We can't only listen to the media and we can't condemn him just yet. It is, after all, 'Innocent until proven guilty'.
http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/2011/11/in-shit-again.html (check Erik H.'s comment to this post)

http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-did-i-get-max-crash-video.html

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" ~MLK

I put it back up along with my explanation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5_7IO4RpxY

I got the video in an email, absolutely the truth.

If there is a security leak at Trimet then that is not my problem.

The fact that they tried to keep it quiet is just business as usual, of course its the beloved MAX .......

I had no idea this was supposedly restricted material.

What was TriMet's rationale for keeping the realtively meaningless video secret in the first place?
It just shows the train smashing into the barricade. No more no less.

How long could the "investigation" possibly take? About an hour?

Interesting, the pantographs are NOT lowered immediately after the accident. Is this not per SOP rules?? The video rolls for at least 45 seconds after everything stops moving, yet again, the pantos are still up.

Also, on the KATU video, the top part of the video is cut off, making the pantos just out of sight. The main support is still visible there, but hard to see.

Doing a little math and a little research it looks as if the train was traveling about 12 MPH. How did I determine this?

Used a stopwatch to time it took for the train to travel the distance of the white (bright) platform edge. The train covered this distance in about 10.92 seconds. Sure, it is hard to get exact measurements, but for this it will be close enough.

Secondly, using Google Earth, I measured the distance of the white platform edge. Even with Google Earths inaccuracy of about 150 feet per mile, again, a short distance like this the error shouldn't be too off. It measured 59.13 meters.

Lastly using a nifty web page at socalspeedskating.org/howfast.htm you can enter distance and time and it will calculate speed.

I am no forensics expert, but using the above system to determine speed you would be amazed to see how accurate it is.

I havnt seen or talked to Al in many months. If he says he recieved it in an e-mail, and didnt know that it was "stolen";
a term in itself that seems suspect, I believe him.

With all the paid flacks TriMet has, they couldn't handle this with a little more finesse? As with so many other things, the (attempted) cover-up is worse than the original incident.

can a public record be stolen, even if its just a digital copy? I hope(sarcasim intended), that it wasnt the only copy. If it was the only copy, there would be all kinds of legal issues, such as book rights and movie rights; not to mention
criminal things like chain of evidence.
Now that this M. Jackson doctor thing is done, we might be witnessing the next biggie, made for fox news, crime of the century.