Since someone's commenting based on partial reads of the report, I'll comment based on my read of the report...
The chemical found in the EB train's crewman was a metabolite of cocaine and it is unknown how long ago the actual cocaine might have been taken or if the person was impaired.
The railroad's attorney, a government agent, a railmen's union rep and others were aboard a locomotive that did a reenactment at the same time of day within a short time after the accident which seems to show that the sun was not a factor, according to all who were aboard the loco'. These observations were correlated with calculations from the US Naval Observatory as to the time of sunrise and so on. They were operating in the early morning, and of course the sun rises in the east. According to the sketch the rails run directly north-south, so the Sun is shining perpendicular to the direction the driver would have to look. It's hard to imagine the sun being much of a factor.
What I don't understand is how the crew didn't operate on the assumption that they were meeting another train that they were going to have to wait for. If you're going to the movies and the traffic light in front of the cinema appears green, you still go into the cinema parking lot, because that is the plan. You don't go speeding past the cinema because the signal is green. In a similar way, the errant train's failure to wait seems at odds with the idea that the plan was for that train to wait for the second train before proceeding.
@W. Smith: Full reverse would have worked about as well for the trains as it did for the Titanic. Nice reference though.
The chemical found in the EB train's crewman was a metabolite of cocaine and it is unknown how long ago the actual cocaine might have been taken or if the person was impaired.
The railroad's attorney, a government agent, a railmen's union rep and others were aboard a locomotive that did a reenactment at the same time of day within a short time after the accident which seems to show that the sun was not a factor, according to all who were aboard the loco'. These observations were correlated with calculations from the US Naval Observatory as to the time of sunrise and so on. They were operating in the early morning, and of course the sun rises in the east. According to the sketch the rails run directly north-south, so the Sun is shining perpendicular to the direction the driver would have to look. It's hard to imagine the sun being much of a factor.
What I don't understand is how the crew didn't operate on the assumption that they were meeting another train that they were going to have to wait for. If you're going to the movies and the traffic light in front of the cinema appears green, you still go into the cinema parking lot, because that is the plan. You don't go speeding past the cinema because the signal is green. In a similar way, the errant train's failure to wait seems at odds with the idea that the plan was for that train to wait for the second train before proceeding.
@W. Smith: Full reverse would have worked about as well for the trains as it did for the Titanic. Nice reference though.