Passenger Trains > Amtrak Accident Reporting

Well, this tops it all for bad reporting. News story on "Special Report" on Fox News (but other outlets are probably equally guilty) about the Amtrak "Crash" that killed the family near Trinidad. So they had the facts right. But the visual, not so much. The voice  was over a video of the derailed Cascade train, complete with Talgo equipment (when was the last time Talgos were used on the Chief?). And it didn't say visual was "stock footage." They totally implied that this was the train involved.  Doesn't anyone bother to check this stuff. I could see if it were a different train with the same Superliner equipment. But Talgos look entirely different and and even carry different colors. Sort of like a 737 crash that shows footage of a 747 from a different airline (but normally with a plane crash, it will say "stock footage" or similar when a similar aircraft is shown since the one that crashed no longer exists). To make matters worse, it shows the locomotive derailed when the Chief's case, nothing was derailed. I know some said I should get a life but this is important. If they can't get their stories straight on a simple train hits van accident, how accurate is reporting on more important issues such as terrorism, war, or the economy. It really makes one wonder what is being taught in our schools. Just get it out there as quick as possible and no one will notice the difference.

KABC-7 in Los Angeles when reporting the "family kicked off the train" story, used footage of the Pacific Surfliner. Not as quite as visually different as your Talgo instance above but, still inaccurate.
Not to mention, it appears they weren't "kicked off" the train as stated in their headline for the story.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/16 15:32 by FrensicPic.

It shows we can trust very little of the daily news casts.  Its all hipe to sell advertsiing to the folks watching, to hell with the facts!

I agree.  Very sloppy.  Whoever put the report together, looking for a picture, probably just typed "Amtrak Accident 6-26-2016" in their computer and pulled up whatever picture involving an Amtrak accident popped up first.  Never mind that it happened to be the Talgo that derailed in Tukwila yesterday, rather than the tragedy in Trinidad.

Hey andersonb109, I've got an idea.

Instead of bitching about it here, why don't you do something productive and communicate with the media outlet that aired the report?

They could most likely keep making similar mistakes until someone sets them straight.

I think that would be far more productive than just complaining here to a bunch of people who can't change it.

Posted from iPhone

walstib Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey andersonb109, I've got an idea.
>
> Instead of bitching about it here, why don't you
> do something productive and communicate with the
> media outlet that aired the report?
>
> They could most likely keep making similar
> mistakes until someone sets them straight.
>
> I think that would be far more productive than
> just complaining here to a bunch of people who
> can't change it.

Believe me, I have tried just that many, many, many times, here in the Chicago area, over the last 40+ years.  It falls on deaf ears, do to all the "young guns" in the TV News Production Room. They couldn't care less when they the get something, ANYTHING, wrong, as they are already on the "next big disaster"!

Ratings, not accuracy, are their bread-and-butter.

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ratings, not accuracy, are their bread-and-butter.

Survivor of train wreck speaks out - exclusive report at 11

Nobody really cares.

Sorry Raindeer, every bad report puts a black eye on rail transportion.  Maybe not to you, but it sure does to many of the public.  I had to hear this for years at the phone should, I take the train because of.....

Something like the five being killed will hit national news, while five killed on your local highway just is seen (maybe) in your area, not nationwide.,

Aside from showing the wrong video, what exactly was inaccurate in the reporting of this incident?

Five people died. That's what all the stories said, right?

More to the point, what exactly would satisfy the people who are complaining? Please be specific.

Posted from iPhone

walstib Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Aside from showing the wrong video, what exactly
> was inaccurate in the reporting of this incident?
>
> Five people died. That's what all the stories
> said, right?
>
> More to the point, what exactly would satisfy the
> people who are complaining? Please be specific.

In many/most cases the TV media made it sound like the train DELIBERATELY struck the vehicle. There is rarely, if EVER, any mention that the vehicle/driver DID NOT STOP AT THE CROSSING!!!!!!   Can't tell you how many times it has been reported that way in the Chicago area, but not until the next day do they report that witness saw the vehicle DRIVE AROUND THE LOWERED CROSSING GATES. 

I agree that we must let our comments be seen by these irresponsible media people. I wrote to USA Today regarding their headline titled "Amtrak Crash" which was really a story about the Colorado van that drove in front of the Southwest Chief. The media is at an all time low in quality.

Posted from Android

All these outraged railfan voices braying into the vast vacuum of media coverage wilderness  about rail accidents over  the last  almost 20 years here on TO never change except the visual coverage has worsened just as all media  coverage of everything has worsened as we switch our allegiances to social media,tweets, instagrams etc.  Get over it. live with it. We have all created this monster and no amount of letters to the publishers will stop them from falling off the cliffs in search of cutting their costs-- as Yeats (or was it Auden or Joan Didion?) said, something else is slouching to Bethlehem. 10 years ago our local Salinas NBC  tv station used a clip if an SP freight for an Amtrak collision.  :-(
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

mundo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It shows we can trust very little of the daily
> news casts.  Its all hipe to sell advertsiing to
> the folks watching, to hell with the facts!

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I totally trust our media when they report vehicular accidents. Reporters go to great length to make sure they got the right color and right make (BMW, Toyota, Honda, etc.) and sometimes, they even pride themselves in getting the model and year correct! They can save precious air time by NOT mentioning all that, but instead, play more commercials.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but this is one of the reasons why I keep saying we are Train Stupid. :-)
 

Well its so nice of you to say that can you be a little more productive in you statement instead of being so over the top in your answere, oh fogot, its Train Orders and thats the way you answer someone. That type of attitude is not needed on here.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey andersonb109, I've got an idea.
>
> Instead of bitching about it here, why don't you
> do something productive and communicate with the
> media outlet that aired the report?
>
> They could most likely keep making similar
> mistakes until someone sets them straight.
>
> I think that would be far more productive than
> just complaining here to a bunch of people who
> can't change it.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Come on Hotwater, your statement that the media "made it sound like the train DELIBERATELY struck the vehicle" is completely ridiculous.

Who would possibly think a train would deliberately hit a vehicle?

Unless the story is about some vengeful engineer, I don't see how any interperation could lead somebody to that conclusion.

The talking heads and their backseat driver minions get worse by the day, and no one in the media gives a shit. Like others have said, it's all ratings and forget photographic accuracy. Most don'tknow the difference between an Amtrak locomotive and the Bat Mobile. Bitch to the media, not here.

The media knows what sells which is dictated by the interests of the viewers. Those of us that would like to see them get the facts straight are a very small minority. With that being said they have taken the attitude,"If it bleeds it leads."

Several years ago there was an incident where a train and car tried to co-occupy the same space.  The train had two LTEX locomotives.  The news reported, "A northbound LTEX  train hit a car at...." 

Not the media, but I hear the police telling the dispatcher to have CSX stop all trains at a particular crossing.  After a minute or two the dispatcher told the officer that CSX didn't have any trains running at that crossing.  I guess not.  It was the NS tracks.  

I noticed the Talgo in the Colorado report also and wondered what that was doing out there.  The sad truth is, the public, for the most part doesn't really care if it's Amtrak, Via, Caltran, or a Talgo.  The train hit the car.   That's all they care about.    I did notice the Fox report said the cause of the accident was under investigation but drugs or alcohol were not involved.

The really bad thing is that 5 people died just because someone apparently wanted to save 30 seconds.

John