Seemingly Useless Technology – Over Cost and Overly Complex

Having spent my life in America, I am never surprised when something completely unnecessary is introduced into our commercial environment. I recall from even 50 years ago NASA (or a related agency) spending a small fortune developing a tool that astronauts could use to write with in space capsule, when in orbit. The Russians invested in no such developments: They gave their astronauts a handful of pencils (perhaps mechanical pencils).

As an expert witness in public transportation, I stumbled upon one recent example of this folderol in a trade magazine that, along with its product, will go unnamed. The object cited was a “station marker” – integrated into a costly passenger rail station module. One has to wonder why a station marker would be needed since the motorman pulling in could see the entire station.

But, aha, perhaps the station marker refers to a device to help the motorman stop the train precisely where it should – much as fixed route transit systems deploy bus stop signs: The driver aligns the front of the bus with the sign, which is position such that, when this happens, the front door opens into a bus shelter, onto a bus pad, or the desired place for passengers to board and alight.

Two interesting lawsuits in which I had recently been engaged, both of which involve this mind-numbing simple problem, come to mind:

·???????? Examining an AMTRAK rail yard in Brooklyn or Queens – the case involved a mechanic injured when he was forced to leap from the lower step of a train car to the platform whose edge mysteriously lay 20 inches from the edge of the steps. Led by a crew of technicians, the rail yard’s supervisor could not find any such marker, called into to some higher authority, and could not give me an answer, since nothing that would appear to mark the spot to stop the front of the train was visible to any of us, and whomever she had spoken to on the phone apparently was equally clueless.

·???????? In another case against this same genius passenger rail monopoly a few years ago (where is Elon Musk when you need him?), I learned that the conductor – who is often positioned several cars behind the locomotive – determines where the train should stop, in order to line up the doors with their respective entrance and exit locations on the platform, and must somehow convey this to the motorman (presumably peering into some tiny rear view mirror) with hand signals, again, from a position that could be several hundred feet behind.

As a marginally-engaged taxpayer, for my money, I would pluck a used female manikin from some trash bin behind a department store and bolt it to the point on the platform where it might attract the almost-always-male motorman’s attention and denote where he should plant the nose of the locomotive. (If this were too offensive to passengers or would-be passengers on the platform, I might partly clothe it.) Otherwise, I cannot imagine what the manufacturer of the “station marker” would be charging the rail system reckless enough about public funding to purchasing such a thing.