After my previous post, I find this snipet from the Railway Age report interesting:
"CSX has since changed its operating practices so that during a signal system suspension, where block signals are disabled and trains operate with TWC, hand-throw main line switches will be secured by the C&S (communications and signals) department; the switches will be locked with signal department locks; train crews will not be able to unlock the switch; "
Ponz posted:During that entire time I can't recall any of my engineman throwing a single switch.
Just sayin'
Ponz
Could be a regional thing. A lot of the older guys would use any excuse to get out of the seat, including lining a switch. I worked with an old B&O engineer that would walk the class one brake test with me, just so he wouldn't be stuck in the cab all day. More than once I wouldn't get a response from him on the radio, and when I'd peek around the corner, he'd be up on the hillside stretching, or putting bread on the long hood for the birds.
Big Jim posted:After my previous post, I find this snipet from the Railway Age report interesting:
"CSX has since changed its operating practices so that during a signal system suspension, where block signals are disabled and trains operate with TWC, hand-throw main line switches will be secured by the C&S (communications and signals) department; the switches will be locked with signal department locks; train crews will not be able to unlock the switch; "
I noticed that also. What came to mind was that old saying about locking the barn door, after the horse is gone. A tragedy that two professional railroaders had to die as a result of that mess.
The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
bigkid posted:Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
As I mentioned, the primary cause of this accident was human error. The switch wasn't thrown. As far as greed goes; what price are willing to place on human life?
Ponz posted:bigkid posted:Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
As I mentioned, the primary cause of this accident was human error. The switch wasn't thrown. As far as greed goes; what price are willing to place on human life?
That's a silly question. Prices are placed on human lives every day in all aspects of life and it's extremely subjective depending on who's life and who's paying. No one's life is truly priceless and you'll never get around that.
TexasSP posted:Ponz posted:bigkid posted:Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
As I mentioned, the primary cause of this accident was human error. The switch wasn't thrown. As far as greed goes; what price are willing to place on human life?
That's a silly question. Prices are placed on human lives every day in all aspects of life and it's extremely subjective depending on who's life and who's paying. No one's life is truly priceless and you'll never get around that.
That's exactly my point. I wonder how much safer our rails would be with, let's say, a 5.8 Billion Dollar influx of cash? This rises to the height of an emergent situation - don't ya think?
Ponz posted:TexasSP posted:Ponz posted:bigkid posted:Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
As I mentioned, the primary cause of this accident was human error. The switch wasn't thrown. As far as greed goes; what price are willing to place on human life?
That's a silly question. Prices are placed on human lives every day in all aspects of life and it's extremely subjective depending on who's life and who's paying. No one's life is truly priceless and you'll never get around that.
That's exactly my point. I wonder how much safer our rails would be with, let's say, a 5.8 Billion Dollar influx of cash? This rises to the height of an emergent situation - don't ya think?
No, I don't have enough information to say we need a 5.8 billion dollar influx. Statistically speaking how "unsafe" are our railroads versus other things which could use a cash influx to save lives? I know more people who have died from cancer than from train accidents, so just speaking from personal experience I would rather see 5.8 billion put into cancer research than rail safety. Your making it out like it's zero sum, all or nothing, and it's not. The rails aren't unsafe and what exactly does that 5.8 billion do to improve safety?
The other problem when it comes to safety is most solutions are done from an "it feels good" aspect as opposed to factual aspect. Most accidents are caused by human failure, not equipment or machine failure, and even those are typically rooted in some human failure.
AND...with the overtones of politics creeping into this discussion, it is getting very close to being closed!
Ponz posted:TexasSP posted:Ponz posted:bigkid posted:Ponz posted:The fact of the matter is that the brakeman/conductor screwed up. The entire segment could have been summed up at that, in my opinion.
As far as I'm concerned GREED, of one type or another, took precedent over any other mitigating factors. In this case, an upgrade in technology playing second fiddle to Safety First.
It's very much akin to many other things happening in our country right now, like the continued rolling back of environmental regulations. For what? Corporate greed and the almighty buck, that's what.
Ponz
Not going to disagree with you about the greed aspect and what that can do, but with the example in question I don't think it was greed, given that the upgrade itself to PTC is expensive (greed is based to a large extent on milking every dollar out of a company you can, without thinking of the future or consequences), I think the cause of the crash was something I have run into a lot over the years, where a critical system is offline/not available and poor planning for how to handle the absence of it. Shutdowns/breakdowns of a CTC/Signalling system should have a series of well defined procedures to handle this and also supervision to make sure these policies are adhered to, this to me is more lack of proper process than greed; either they had well established procedures that someone didn't follow (which raises questions why, did they deliberately ignore it, were they told to as to 'make schedule', or they didn't know it, and if so, why?) or it was poorly thought out and they got lucky in the past.
As I mentioned, the primary cause of this accident was human error. The switch wasn't thrown. As far as greed goes; what price are willing to place on human life?
That's a silly question. Prices are placed on human lives every day in all aspects of life and it's extremely subjective depending on who's life and who's paying. No one's life is truly priceless and you'll never get around that.
That's exactly my point. I wonder how much safer our rails would be with, let's say, a 5.8 Billion Dollar influx of cash? This rises to the height of an emergent situation - don't ya think?
I saw the report Sunday evening and watched with great interest. A post earlier on this page asked about the speed of the Amtrak train. Not being familiar with Railroad rules, I didn't think about the speed rules where a signal system wasn't working. My first thought on that was, how the heck did the engine make the curve at all. 61 miles per hour on a rail, all that weight with cars pushing behind it, it's a wonder the engine didn't fly off the track and take the cars with it. Somehow that thing managed to hang in there and, well, the tragic end result of it climbing the front end of the CSX train came to pass instead.
As for the PTC system. I watched a YouTube re-broadcast of an episode of Modern Marvels-Freight Trains. I think it's a History Channel show. Modern Marvels, bridges, roads, skyscrapers, tuna fish cans. It discussed some sort of track driven safety system, Electronic Train Management or something like that. It gave the train the ability to see far ahead and detect dangers and signal the engineer, and if the engineer failed to slow or stop or whatever the protocol called for, it would take over and stop the train. I'm guessing PTC is the same thing just acronymed differently?
I was dumbfounded by the fact that consistency among railroads was hard to come by. If you watch any of the films about the history of the railroad, you'll see that it has had a history of being hard-headed when it comes to high dollar safety changes. People like Westinghouse and the guy who invented the modern day coupler system, were shewed away because what they invented worked, but it cost too much to implement. It was easier to let brakemen lose fingers and arms and their lives coupling engines and stopping trains with a steering wheel and more cost effective.
One other drawback to PTC or ETM or whatever it's called, if you can program the engine to see for itself, it can almost drive itself now. A few more ones and zeros stacked just right in a program and you can kiss the engineers job goodbye. They already have a system set up to track cars all along the route electronically, so conductor seems to be their next victim. Caboose use faded and died due to modern technology. Before long, a train will use GPS, ETM, and it's onboard computer to not only go where it is destined, but switch track and escape to a siding if another train is headed directly for it. BNSF has that operations center that acts like an air traffic control center and the person behind the computer screen can monitor the trains travel, see obstacles ahead, and direct the train with a mouse or touch screen if need be.
At least that's what I saw in Modern Marvels. I'm not nor ever have been an engineer, conductor so I only know what I read, watch or am told.
Part of the issue I see with PTC is that most of the communications between pieces of equipment is done by radio waves. Chances for congested channels, hacking or interference.
The system I saw seemed to be based around the ops center. It looked more like a large call center, but each cubicle consisted of a person who, like an air traffic controller, had a designated track space in which they were responsible. If anything went wrong in their space, they were responsible for taking care of it. If shutting down the train remotely was in order, they ordered it.
There is anopther critical aspect of PTC that most people don't know about. That is the availability of people to do the work. Installation of PTC requires many man-years of highly skilled engineering talent. (that is engineers by education, not those who run trains). To install PTC, every mile of track has to be analyzed in great detail. There are logical problems to be solved at every interlocking. Differences in speeds add complexity.
So you have a need for hundreds, maybe thousands of signal and track engineers to do this job, which means taking them away from their normal work. And you can't just go out and hire engineering skills the way you find laborers. How are you going to find enough to do the job in a very short time knowing that once the system is in place, demand for those skills will be much lower ?
Then there is the hardware. It's not just sitting on the suppliers' shelves waiting to be ordered. It all has to be installed in custom configurations. No business is going to gear up production of such specialized hardware to make it available to do the job in three years.
It's easy for the Congress to mandate such systems, especially when no tax money is involved. They don't even think about who is going to do the work.
Something else that is wrong with PTC is the one size fits all approach. It's ridiculous to mandate PTC where there is only one daily passenger train and not much freight traffic. For example, the Santa Fe from La Junta to Lamy, NM. Only the
Southwest Chief and a few local freights. Spending millions of dollars on a line where your not likely to save an average of one life per hundred years.
I fully agree about the short line operations not really needing PTC. RJ Corman runs through Frankfort both east and west, or maybe it's north and south. No other trains use that line. Train traffic is not akin to airline traffic. Trains travel along set road beds interconnected in all sorts of ways throughout the United States. Planes fly routes from Los Angeles to Albuquerque and they are on radar from the time they leave to the time they land. Where you have the highest opportunity of trains accidentally being routed onto the same track going opposite directions, is where PTC is most critical. Freight operations like BNSF, Union Pacific, and the other 5 class 1 operations do share some of the same track in route to and from their home stations, like motorist on highways. Knowing who is where and what he is currently doing is a priority to safety on any railway. But to say RJ Corman needs to install PTC on his line from Nicholasville to Shelbyville Ky. is a waste of his capital. Corman knows no one else is on his track and if someone else is on his track line, how'd they get there? It's not like a train can get lost on old bakersmill road and wind up driving off the abandoned walk bridge at boggy creek.
I also agree with the statement that PTC is not a breakfast cereal or peanut butter that can be bought at the nearest Kroger or Walmart. But our government, bless their uneducated little hearts, thinks that just because someone finds a cure for accidents, it's as easy as flipping a switch to implement it. Kennedy said going to the moon was hard, but if we put every effort into making it happen, we can do it. He said that in 1960 or 61, my history is vague, and it finally happened in 1969 after much trial and error and loss of life and cost in blown up rockets. But NASA was a United States owned agency. The railroads are privately owned. If the government wants it done, then the government needs to help. Try it out on the major class 1 lines that run 24/7/365 all over the U.S. Fix the aging infrastructure, find some way to stop trees from falling on the tracks, stop snow and ice, put stop spikes at crossings so dumb motorist with limited patience will stop running through gates. Cars have radar systems these days that let them detect obstacles in their way. Build that into the locomotives. Give it a range of 4 miles, 5 miles, as far out as it can reach. If it sees a switch open instead of closed, (turning instead of straight), it tells the engineer, ops center, and whoever else needs to know so they can either throw a switch to change it, or just push a button to say, "yea we know, it's ok". Obstacle on track detected, and without any assistance, the train just slows to a stop until no obstacle is detected. Track damage detected. Possible collision imminent. Cow on track. Use GPS with it. Make the locomotive your PTC, then fix the track.
Never confuse someone with the facts, Did Dan Rather work for CBS?
mlaughlinnyc posted:It's easy for the Congress to mandate such systems, especially when no tax money is involved. They don't even think about who is going to do the work.
Congress has already spent over $500 Million in grants to help implement PTC. The latest being $200 Million in 2018.
I thought parts of the SW CHIEF line via Lamy eas exempt from PTC.
Yardmaster96 posted:Cars have radar systems these days that let them detect obstacles in their way. Build that into the locomotives. Give it a range of 4 miles, 5 miles, as far out as it can reach. If it sees a switch open instead of closed, (turning instead of straight), it tells the engineer, ops center, and whoever else needs to know so they can either throw a switch to change it, or just push a button to say, "yea we know, it's ok". Obstacle on track detected, and without any assistance, the train just slows to a stop until no obstacle is detected. Track damage detected. Possible collision imminent. Cow on track. Use GPS with it. Make the locomotive your PTC, then fix the track.
Uh, you are familiar with the concept of curves and hills, right? Radar is Line of Sight and can't see around curves or over hills.
Casey Jones2 posted:mlaughlinnyc posted:It's easy for the Congress to mandate such systems, especially when no tax money is involved. They don't even think about who is going to do the work.
Congress has already spent over $500 Million in grants to help implement PTC. The latest being $200 Million in 2018.
Casey:
Congress appropriated this money for commuter rail agencies. They have not sent any PTC related money to the Class 1's.
Curt
juniata guy posted:Casey Jones2 posted:mlaughlinnyc posted:It's easy for the Congress to mandate such systems, especially when no tax money is involved. They don't even think about who is going to do the work.
Congress has already spent over $500 Million in grants to help implement PTC. The latest being $200 Million in 2018.
Casey:
Congress appropriated this money for commuter rail agencies. They have not sent any PTC related money to the Class 1's.
Curt
Curt is correct, and even after all those hundreds of millions of federal dollars, those various commuter rail agencies have been woefully behind the class 1s in implementation of PTC to their own equipment.
Palallin
Good point, didn't know that, learned something today. Ok, let's discuss this further. Keeping with the locomotive as our source of information idea, what about satellite tracking using GPS. FBI does it, NSA does it. It would require railroads to update how they do things, or maybe not, but the idea is to have a system on the engine that is connected to a satellite, who's I have no idea haven't gotten that far, that allows the satellite to see all engines connected to the system. If the engine has it, the satellite can see it, knows where it is sitting still right now, or moving. Can see it inside a tunnel, through heavy trees, around a curve, uphill, downhill, snow storm, whatever. It can see if it is moving, how fast, how slow, and most of all, if it is on a collision course with another engine. Granted, the other engine would have to have the system installed. But we are talking about a box installed inside the cab, not 800 boxes along a path of track line.
The satellite would be the over watch for the railroad, and transmit real time information about the engines route, speed, timing, location, etc. The engineer sees this, the operations center sees this, the yard tower sees this. Heck, if he wants, Warren Buffet can see it if wants. For now, Class 1 railroads where there is crisscrossing of track use and the danger of two trains on one track is more prevalent would be the candidates for this. Granted all 7 would need to buy in to test it, because if BNSF buys in and none of the others buy in, then only BNSF can see their trains and not the UP or KCS trains they meet and greet in any given day.
Tracking rolling stock and packages would be enhanced. If done correctly, you could almost eliminate two trains from ever meeting on the same track because if you have to plan your route and type that route into the system, if two trains from rival railroads or two trains from the same company were to somehow route themselves onto the same track in opposite directions, the system would cancel the route on both ends until someone or somebodies figured it out and planned again. Over kill i'm sure, but at least it solves my dumb idea for using radar.
It seems to me a system has already been developed (although implementation is not complete). Why are you trying to reinvent it?
Alternatives
Satellites, eh?
You know what? It might would be a hardship on me, but, I would just love to see what would happen if the Martians took out every last satellite in space!
Now let's see...where did I put my trusty ol' Eludium PU36 Explosive Space Modulator? Here's a little secret for those of you in the know...you don't need a 238 page book in order to explain to you how to make it work! 
Farmer_Bill posted:
I thought Bugs had it. Maybe the Martian needs to to visit CBS. Very angty indeed!
