to high tech?

[Anonymous]

I would never want to have a computter do surgery on me! Nor would I want a computter run an Amtrack train that I am on. Realy, live, breathing people are better. How can people replace themselvs and on top of that, put themselvs out of work??????

[Anonymous]

If I had a choice between a high tech SD90-MAC, or a high nose GP-9, I with out a thought, chose the GP-9 Much more user frindly, and NO COMPUTTERS!

[Randy Stahl]

yea ...with a hole in the floor for a toilet!!!!!!!!!!!
Randy

[Anonymous]

Speaking of toilets, is it true new toilets are self contained with bio-critters that digest offending material?

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Train Guy 3

Hmmmm OnStar on EMD locos..... I never thought about that. GM owns the system so that works perfect for putting it to use. Can't wait to see that commercial!

On Star, how my I help you?

I've locked my keys in my locomotive,
do you think you could unlock it for,

We'll try;

Okay,hey you really did it--thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

I heard something once about a guy doing run 8 up a grade, he stepped outside for a moment to take care of some business, and the cab door wouldn't open !!!!

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jruppert

I heard something once about a guy doing run 8 up a grade, he stepped outside for a moment to take care of some business, and the cab door wouldn't open !!!!

Would love to hear the end of this story! [}:)]

Mz Moo

[Randy Stahl]

NS skipped a step of evolution when it comes to toilets, they went from crapping un a plastic bag and tossing it out the window. ( they must award points for the turd bags that entangle themselves in the lineside wires , I saw dozens on a trip south of Chattanoga ,hanging from the wires ) to the most sophisticated locomotive toilet yet....It even has a green light that tells you GO. Be afraid however if the green light is not on.
Randy

[Overmod]

To expand a bit on the 'sextant' idea, and Randy's preferences for locomotive servicing:

It's a bit better to learn principles of navigation with a sextant, not only because the device is useful for navigation if the fancy technology goes out (or isn't available on your emergency raft) but because you learn some basic theory about navigation that isn't related to 'pu***he right button' or 'know the freqs of satellites in the constellation'. I think it's similar in a way to making kids learn arithmetic as well as (or instead of) pushing buttons on a calculator for the 'magic' answer. [Note that people in education tried for years to keep kids away from calculators in school, then allowed them on SATs, and are now recognizing that letting them push buttons first may be better IF they can still discipline kids to learn the how and why, in a timely manner, later.]

Likewise, all the fancy algorithms and maintenance analysis procedures I can provide won't replace common sense, or even some ordinary materials or equipment, when it comes to fixing something that goes wrong on the road. Note, for example, that I can read the codes from my '94 GM by sticking a paper clip in the appropriate holes of the test socket... I can also reset the annoying little automatic service lights on my BMW the same way.

In lots of cases, it's easier to do some ordinary testing rather than go to all the trouble of setting up current (no pun intended) types of test apparatus. (The solution being to integrate the test procedure stuff WITHOUT introducing new kinds of confusion or failure for the guys who have to make a living running the thing).

However, sometimes I have to see things the other way. Do you need to pay somebody to learn the theory behind watchmaking in order to fix watches whose only required 'repairs' involve parts replacement? This is NOT to say that I think watchmaking is an undesirable skill...

I won't go extensively into the issue of what happens when someone knows "too much". Or worse, thinks they do but doesn't. I'd like to think this doesn't happen often in railroading, but from time to time it's mighty surprising. (And one of the goals of automation in practical railroading is to eliminate the problem or alleviate the consequences of 'aha! moments')

I still think most of the problem of 'too high tech' is when the tech is recognizable as such... or unrecognizable to human beings as anything familiar. As a case in point: there was an article a few years ago in Trains describing a trip on a couple of Alco locomotives, in which an engineer described how one of the locomotives was having trouble making transition. He mentioned that he had parts to fix this problem for EMD, but carried nothing for Alcos.

This is technological, both in the understanding of the engineering and in the ability to provide a solution (although I'd bet that there would be some interesting union activity if it were better known that engineers carried electrical parts! ;-})

IF computerized (or microprocessor-based) controls on locomotives were a bit better designed, it might be possible for engine crews to carry some of the more common pieces... or, for example, a small board with enough software in flash RAM to enable programming the more common kinds of needed workaround, specifically including faster loading with restricted peak current for GE locomotives. Sure, there would be some learning involved. But nothing really more *complicated* than learning the ins and outs of a GP7's relay-based electrical system, I think...

[Anonymous]

Give me a high nose GP-7 over a SD 90 MAC anyday. If a chip fails in the 90 MAC, then I might as well scrap the whole thing. Hmmm.... Wounder how much steel I can use from that to build me 2 more GP-9s!

[jchnhtfd]

Overmod has some very good points -- many of which come to one very very important point with 'high tech': it needs to be, from the user's standpoint, 'transparent'. That is, the user a) shouldn't really be aware that it's there and b) should, ideally, never have to fuss with it. It would make a certain amount of sense, too, to have modern diesels set up so that boards can be swapped out on the fly, and, perhaps, to carry spare boards -- but a lot of that depends on the ability to identify that a problem is a board (or chip) and not somethings else. Aircraft usage -- in those areas where the 'magic' is critical (like navigation or, more particularly aircraft control!) relies on multiple computers (usually three) all doing the same job, and having the system 'vote' on what to do and say -- and always has a fail-operational mode of some kind (brief definition of failure terms: fail-safe: whatever it is quits operating and stops in a safe position -- train air brakes are a decent example; fail-operational: whatever it is continues to operate in a safe, but often somewhat degraded, manner).

There is, in aircraft, a rather serious problem (which is occupying a lot of attention from the training folks) of too much reliance on the 'magic', but this is more a problem with the navigation aspects than with the actual flight control aspects (although at least one Airbus was lost due to problems with the crew understanding the flight control magic).

As to the sextant on ships -- they carry them, they really do... but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that no one on board could navigate with them anymore!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod:
This is technological, both in the understanding of the engineering and in the ability to provide a solution (although I'd bet that there would be some interesting union activity if it were better known that engineers carried electrical parts! ;-})

<Future Ad in TRAINS:>
"ENGINEERS! Tired of not being able to make it up the grade with your current loco consist? These computer chips will boost your loco's performance by adjusting system parameters to the numbers YOU want! Chips are available for most loco's on the road today. Visit our website - www.watchmylocogo.com - for more information!"

Just like you can buy for your car today...

[Mookie]

Hmmm - Tree - I can think of so many things to say here, but going to put a button on it and not say a word!

Mookie [:I]

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Hmmm - Tree - I can think of so many things to say here, but going to put a button on it and not say a word!

Mookie [:I]

That's all right - sometimes I have trouble talking with my tongue in my cheek....[:p]

[Junctionfan]

I wonder if you would have to defrag the computers in the trains. What would happen if they performed an illegal operation?

[Mookie]

I have the same trouble! And since this thread looks like it is running out of "steam", will share with you that I took notes over the weekend of questions to ask. So my writing while riding in Millie sez - and I quote "Did Eloquent Pant on UP - Do u suppose AO the UP r scribble...." And I think at that time I had my tongue firmly lodged between my teef...how else could you screw up a note so badly!

Mook