Shades of the Air France flight that went down. When mass transportation is no longer actually flown by a person all the time or when a train isn't really run by an operator all the time this sort of thing can happen.
The operator of the DC train engaged the emergency brake but likely wasn't allowed by the computer fast enough to disengage the electric motors. So the likely result was that the emergency brake was trying to stop that the operator engaged while the electric engines were still pulling because she couldn't override the computers.
begin quote:Reporting from Washington -- The operator of the Metro train that slammed into a stationary train apparently had activated the emergency brake in a failed effort to stop before the deadly collision, federal officials said Tuesday, as they searched for the cause of Monday's wreck that killed nine and injured 80.
Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said the emergency brake was depressed, and the steel rails showed evidence that the brakes were engaged. Investigators also said the moving train had been in automatic mode, which means onboard computers should have controlled its speed and stopped it before it got too close to the stationary train. end quote.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-subway-crash24-2009jun24,0,1702972.story
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