Letters to the Editor

摘要

Your editorial on driverless trains in Observer 355 was most interesting, and in certain circumstances there is no reason why they shouldn't be used. I've travelled on driverless trains in the London docks area and also at some airports - and they work well. The biggest problem today for railway operators is finding enough dedicated people to become footplate crew. But with driverless trains, wherever they operate, mishaps will happen - and who pays the compensation? This could be a massive amount if a mishap occurred in a built up area, whether residential or industrial. I would hate to have paid for the damage to the runaway iron ore train M02712, on the Mount Newman Railway near Port Headland, on 5 November 2018. The derailment destroyed two locomotives, 245 ore cars and 2km of track, not to mention the downtime for all the other workers, and lost production. A read of a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau Rail Occurrence Investigation - R.O.2018-018 Preliminary dated 12 March 2019 - is most worthwhile. A two-man crew would have prevented this run-away.