slowed before? this is a pretty sharp curve. it has been there forever. but the fact that we ve had other accidents there, means we have to look beyond just the fact that the train engineer said that brakes were not working. we have to see if there s additional issues concerning that track. what s the range of possibility, likely possibilities here? what does past experience tell you, mary? well, past experience says that, you know, on more than one occasion, people trains have been unable to slow down in time for the track. it can be equipment malfunction but also the issue of the track is an abnormally sharp curve and that it presents a problem to trains. in our country, very old track, old infrastructure and in other nations we like to compare ourselves to japan and we all want bullet trains, but the fact is their tracks are very different. they were constructed specifically for high-speed trains and there the trains are 200 miles an hour. 70 miles an hour may be just entirely
when the brakes were applied, if they were applied soon enough, if the train had slowed to the point where the brakes were going to work when they were going to apply be applied and the ntsb will have all that from the black box. when you take a look at it from the 30,000 foot view of the commuter rail system at large, has technology advanced to a point where there are better safety systems that could be in place for commuter rail? yes. technology has advanced literally places around the world, we have far more advanced trains but having an advanced train on an old track system is not going to work. what we have to do is have the systems work with each other, the track has to be able to accommodate the train. for example, in china, i ve been on the maglive trains. we ve tried to invest here but we don t have the population and density to do that. in japan i had the occasion to work with japan rail in the past and ride the bullet trains many
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about the turn. the turn has been here for decades. trains negotiate the turn all day long. so it s not about the turn. something else had to happen. we want to find out what it is. again, if there is a lesson to learn from it, we will. and that s why the ntsb being here i think is very helpful. they re an independent agency. they re all about the facts. and whatever it is, it is. what are they telling you about the use of what they call the black box, is they believe they can get the information out of there and interviews with crew to figure out what happened here and why? there are two black boxes. one was in the cab in the front. one was in the back. they ve downloaded both. that will give you the speed of the train, whether the train was going too fast. there is a 70-mile-per-hour speed limit just north of where we are. trains are supposed to slow down to about 30 miles per hour for the curve. they ll tell you if the brakes were applied, if they were,
i believe we have the first best responder network in the country. i have done this all across the country. i believe when it comes to emergency responders, new york has the best. unfortunately, we ve had too much experience in the emergency response field is probably one of the reasons why we developed the expertise, but the trains are being righted today as you can see. they ll be moved out and ntsb is doing their investigation and we hope to get service up by the end of the week. our first concern is the safety and the treatment. third we want to get the rail back up. there are tens of thousands of commuters who use this rail and hopefully by the end of the week it will be up and running. governor, thank you for joining us. it is no small irony in august