Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="CNW 6000"]Couldn't the railroads (on the GPS front) take a cue from the trucking industry?  My neighbor is an OTR driver for a steel carrier.  There's a system on his rig that can either tune his truck via radio signal for more HP or shut it down with the proper coded sequence if the truck goes too far into a place it's not supposed to be.  Say a RR had an engine with this system on it that is supposed to be holding a main to wait for an oncoming train to be diverted into a siding.  If the train passes a couple of signals without slowing or reacting properly the disp could contact the train via radio or phone (if allowed).  With no response they could apply brakes and/or even shut down the engine.  Problem solved?[/quote]Railroads have been there for 20 years! -- but this is not cheap or easy to implement.  FRA regulations require that microprocessor-based train-control systems have to be proven both by the railroad and the equipment manufacturer to be better than existing systems, and that is fearsomely expensive to do. The previous post mentions BNSF's ETMS system, which is a Communications-Based Train-Control (CBTC) system overlay on existing TWC and CTC control systems.  ETMS includes positive enforcement of authority violations and overspeeds, including predictive braking.  In territories where it is implemented it will prevent most of the train-to-train collisions, train overspeed derailments, and train-to-MOW collisions that might occur.  CBTC systems use a variety of inputs (depending upon manufacturer and configuration), including GPS, to determine train location.  I do not know enough about the collision cited here to state unequivocally that ETMS or CBTC would have prevented it specifically. S. Hadid
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag