oltmannd The biggest difference between ATC and PTC is that ATC is reactive - the system doesn't do anything until some authority has been violated. PTC is proactive. It prevents the violation.
The biggest difference between ATC and PTC is that ATC is reactive - the system doesn't do anything until some authority has been violated. PTC is proactive. It prevents the violation.
From what I've read, either in Trains or Railway Age-maybe both, PTC (in it's current form) would not have prevented a couple of the low speed collisions that have happened. (Neither would ATC for that matter.) The trains were moving within the parameters of restricted speed and PTC would have allowed them to pass the last signal before the collision.
Jeff
AMTRAK expects its version of PTC to be operational by the end of the year deadline regardless of future funding cuts.
jeffhergert oltmannd The biggest difference between ATC and PTC is that ATC is reactive - the system doesn't do anything until some authority has been violated. PTC is proactive. It prevents the violation. From what I've read, either in Trains or Railway Age-maybe both, PTC (in it's current form) would not have prevented a couple of the low speed collisions that have happened. (Neither would ATC for that matter.) The trains were moving within the parameters of restricted speed and PTC would have allowed them to pass the last signal before the collision. Jeff
And the FRA will also allow, short distance, low speed transfer runs to operate without PTC in covered territory without being equipped. This seems to be a huge mistake to me...
...and a big mistake for the RRs to want it. It's not terrible if you are doing a PTC overlay and keeping the existing signals for determining train location and movement authority. But if you ever want to wean yourself off fixed signalling onto "real" PTC, it's just one more hurdle to get over with the FRA.
It's bad enough to have installed all this new fixed signalling you're only going to ask to pull up in a decade or two. If you make it a part of your safety plan you had to get approved, you have to jump through all those hoops again.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
PTC - WILL FAIL
Either on specific locomotives and/or on wayside appurtences. These failures will happen every day in various locations with various pieces of equipment. The trains and locations involved will not be brought to a complete stop and will not stay stopped until the malfunctions are repaired.
With the Operating Rules for PTC operations having yet to be formulated it is unkonwn how badly the railroad will be affected by routine PTC failures; if the rules are written wrong it could be catastrophic.
In the harsh railroad enviornment - THINGS BREAK! It isn't if, but when.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD PTC - WILL FAIL Either on specific locomotives and/or on wayside appurtences. These failures will happen every day in various locations with various pieces of equipment. The trains and locations involved will not be brought to a complete stop and will not stay stopped until the malfunctions are repaired. With the Operating Rules for PTC operations having yet to be formulated it is unkonwn how badly the railroad will be affected by routine PTC failures; if the rules are written wrong it could be catastrophic. In the harsh railroad enviornment - THINGS BREAK! It isn't if, but when.
I would guess that a PTC failure would be treated similar to the way current cab signal/ATC failures are handled. A failure to pass the departure test at the initial station and the engine can't lead. An enroute failure and the train can continue, either on signal indications (assuming they left them in) and/or absolute block.
The thing is, if they have gone to one man crews than the argument that the PTC system was the "second set of eyes" in the cab go out the window. Reading a discussion about the voted-down contract on the BNSF that would've allowed engineer only on PTC equipped trains pointed out that if the PTC failed, they didn't have to call a conductor for the train to continue. If the PTC failed 10 miles into a 200+ mile run, the engineer would've been on his own for the remainder of the trip. (Except for the Master Conductor supervising him and who knows how many other trains via drone and/or inward facing camera.)
Considering the current political enviornment, I doubt the rules governing PTC failure will be as simple and straight forward as they are concerning the failure of current Train Control.
BaltACD Considering the current political enviornment, I doubt the rules governing PTC failure will be as simple and straight forward as they are concerning the failure of current Train Control.
+1 I'd guess it will follow the rules that allow unequipped transfer jobs. Maybe restricting speed plus all sorts of manual "belt and suspenders" OS reporting in dark territory.
jeffhergertI would guess that a PTC failure would be treated similar to the way current cab signal/ATC failures are handled. A failure to pass the departure test at the initial station and the engine can't lead. An enroute failure and the train can continue, either on signal indications (assuming they left them in) and/or absolute block.
Might be even worse. Cab signal failure enroute knocks you to down to 40 mph (by rule, I think, on NS, maybe not be reg.) I'll bet PTC failure will be more restrictive. The irony is that one slow train among many faster ones creates many more chances for collisions.
oltmannd jeffhergert I would guess that a PTC failure would be treated similar to the way current cab signal/ATC failures are handled. A failure to pass the departure test at the initial station and the engine can't lead. An enroute failure and the train can continue, either on signal indications (assuming they left them in) and/or absolute block. Might be even worse. Cab signal failure enroute knocks you to down to 40 mph (by rule, I think, on NS, maybe not be reg.) I'll bet PTC failure will be more restrictive. The irony is that one slow train among many faster ones creates many more chances for collisions.
jeffhergert I would guess that a PTC failure would be treated similar to the way current cab signal/ATC failures are handled. A failure to pass the departure test at the initial station and the engine can't lead. An enroute failure and the train can continue, either on signal indications (assuming they left them in) and/or absolute block.
Our rules say 40 mph with wayside signal indications without an absolute block. Once an absolute block is given, may run up to 79 mph with wayside signal indications.
If there are no wayside signals, without the absolute block restricted speed. With the absolute block 49 mph.
When operating with an absolute block you can't pass a signal displaying restricting, restricted-proceed, stop and proceed or stop without the dispatcher's permission.
I think a PTC failure will be treated along the same lines. While politicians may have forced the implementation of PTC, I doubt they really know much about it, other than it's promised to prevent accidents and crashes. Where it's required or the exceptions within PTC territory to allow unequipped trains and engines. I would even bet they haven't thought what to do when it fails because they don't believe it can fail.
Bottom line up until at least 1969 this was the system that protected the main line of what was the Penn RR, it worked quite well, but it also needed maintenance the fact that todays trains are running without that protection is an outright crime. Safety of life has to be the number one responsibility of all employees and management.
The rules are already in place and have been since FRA published the PTC rule. It's unlikely it will be modified in the current environment. It would require all the NPRM protocol etc.
Euclid There will also be more features added to the mandate as time allows the state of the art to expand. The industry is a cash cow now, and safety mandates are in season politically.
Additional features would probably be outside the safety mandate and therefore not an FRA issue. If it were it would require (under current FRA protocol) an RSAC recommendation and an NPRM that requires an OMB audit!
Buslist BaltACD Considering the current political enviornment, I doubt the rules governing PTC failure will be as simple and straight forward as they are concerning the failure of current Train Control. The rules are already in place and have been since FRA published the PTC rule. It's unlikely it will be modified in the current environment. It would require all the NPRM protocol etc.
BaltACD Considering the current political enviornment, I doubt the rules governing PTC failure will be as simple and straight forward as they are concerning the failure of current Train Control. The rules are already in place and have been since FRA published the PTC rule. It's unlikely it will be modified in the current environment. It would require all the NPRM protocol etc.
I am talking about carrier operating rules that will apply to train and engine crews, train dispatchers, signal personnel and MofW personnel.
While such rules may be written at present, they have yet to be published or placed in effect on the carriers.
Railroad safety is important to everyone. The GOP congress cut the funding to complete Amtrak's Positive Train Control (PTC) system and Americans died, Immediately after the accident the GOP cut the funding again which means means that some more Americans will surely die in railroad accidents that the PTC system would prevent.
We know that the GOP has been willing let some of Americans die for lack of affordable healthcare. Now we know that the GOP is also willing to let Americans die for lack of a PTC system on our railroads. The GOP is wrong on this and they have are wrong on the ACA Medicaid expansion. They are usually wrong on everything. Why does anyone vote for or listen to these fools?
I have been copying the applicable parts of the rrequirements for the PTC system (49CFR 236) to allow me to write a PTC system for my model railroad. Just those parts will as stated in my earlier post VERY complex, no less those parts that I will not use. Writing the code will have the programmers pulling their hair out. Does anyone know what computer language will be used to write. the code (C, C++, Python, Jave)?. I would love to see the completed code that will be used by the railroads.
RGARYK Railroad safety is important to everyone. The GOP congress cut the funding to complete Amtrak's Positive Train Control (PTC) system and Americans died, Immediately after the accident the GOP cut the funding again which means means that some more Americans will surely die in railroad accidents that the PTC system would prevent. We know that the GOP has been willing let some of Americans die for lack of affordable healthcare. Now we know that the GOP is also willing to let Americans die for lack of a PTC system on our railroads. The GOP is wrong on this and they have are wrong on the ACA Medicaid expansion. They are usually wrong on everything. Why does anyone vote for or listen to these fools?
Rubbish.
The Senate just passed a long term Transportation bill that includes a rollback of the PTC deadline to 2018. Now let's see what the house does.
RGARYKThe GOP is wrong on this and they have are wrong on the ACA Medicaid expansion. They are usually wrong on everything. Why does anyone vote for or listen to these fools?
"No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby." --H.L. Mencken, 1926.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I use the middle part of that quote at least weekly, and sometimes daily (pertaining to drivers on public roads in my work zones).
Thanks for the attribution.
- Paul North.
It's hard to tell if Mencken was just being sharp-tongued and sarcastic or if he really had a low opinion of democracy as a form of government when he made that quote. Fascism was beginning to be looked at favorably by many as an alternative to representative democracy.
I think Mencken was a clever writer, but also an embittered cynic to the extreme. Like many on here and elsewhere, he had a low opinion of politicians and the people who "elect" them in a corrupt and flawed system. I suspect his views would be even nastier today post C-U.
CSSHEGEWISCHIt's hard to tell if Mencken was just being sharp-tongued and sarcastic or if he really had a low opinion of democracy as a form of government when he made that quote.
What he had was a low opinion of the American 'booboisie' -- as expressed in another great Menckenism, 'you'll never go broke underestimating the taste of the American people'.
It's not a problem with democracy as much as it's a problem with its evil twin, ochlocracy ... or perhaps the 'best kind of democracy money can buy' that gave us Tweed and the Boston Irish ward-heelers ... and, later, the Prendergast machine that produced Harry Truman.
Excerpt from “Happy Days 1880-1892” by H. L. Mencken (1940)
I always enjoyed the train ride to and from Washington, and in fact still prefer railroad travel to any other mode of conveyance by land. We used the B. & 0. exclusively, not only because its ancient Baltimore station, Camden, was convenient to my father’s office, but also as a matter of local pride and patriotism. The B. & O. made Baltimore, and Baltimoreans have never forgotten the fact. The company is tax exempt in Maryland to this day, and Baltimoreans going to New York would use its trains almost invariably if it had a tunnel through the North river. Its once famous flyer, the Royal Blue, did not go into service until 1890, but it had fast trains running between Baltimore and Washington so long ago as 1881, and by the middle eighties they were making the forty miles in fifty minutes, including the time wasted in getting in and out of the two cities. My father began to sell cigars to the B. & O. back in the seventies, when it added the first dining cars to its star trains, and this business, along with the accompanying station-restaurant business, helped to put his firm on its feet. He died convinced that B. &O. trains were somehow superior to all others. If it were argued in his presence that they shipped a great deal of ballast dust and locomotive ash, then he would reply that those of both the Pennsylvania and the New York Central shipped even more, and that in any case no rational man could object to a nuisance that had its origin in immutable natural laws, and was thus in accord with the will of God.
Wizlish CSSHEGEWISCH It's hard to tell if Mencken was just being sharp-tongued and sarcastic or if he really had a low opinion of democracy as a form of government when he made that quote. What he had was a low opinion of the American 'booboisie' -- as expressed in another great Menckenism, 'you'll never go broke underestimating the taste of the American people'. It's not a problem with democracy as much as it's a problem with its evil twin, ochlocracy
CSSHEGEWISCH It's hard to tell if Mencken was just being sharp-tongued and sarcastic or if he really had a low opinion of democracy as a form of government when he made that quote.
It's not a problem with democracy as much as it's a problem with its evil twin, ochlocracy
Your quote is not from Mencken; it is a misattribution. The correct quote was the one I gave.
If you read more of Mencken, it is pretty clear he had a very low opinion of democracy, along with many other icons, such as religion.
"Oligarchy" or "ochlocracy"? Or both? Mencken detested the rich.
"Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies, and every one knows it who has ever given any sober reflection to the matter. A democratic state may profess to venerate the name, and even pass laws making it officially sacred, but it simply cannot tolerate the thing. In order to keep any coherence in the governmental process, to prevent the wildest anarchy in thought and act, the government must put limits upon the free play of opinion. In part, it can reach that end by mere propaganda, by the bald force of its authority — that is, by making certain doctrines officially infamous. But in part it must resort to force, i.e., to law. One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions. At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty. Always they condition it with the doctrine that the state, i.e., the majority, has a sort of right of eminent domain in acts, and even in ideas — that it is perfectly free, whenever it is so disposed, to forbid a man to say what he honestly believes. Whenever his notions show signs of becoming "dangerous," ie, of being heard and attended to, it exercises that prerogative. And the overwhelming majority of citizens believe in supporting it in the outrage. Including especially the Liberals, who pretend — and often quite honestly believe — that they are hot for liberty. They never really are. Deep down in their hearts they know, as good democrats, that liberty would be fatal to democracy — that a government based upon shifting and irrational opinion must keep it within bounds or run a constant risk of disaster. They themselves, as a practical matter, advocate only certain narrow kinds of liberty — liberty, that is, for the persons they happen to favor. The rights of other persons do not seem to interest them. If a law were passed tomorrow taking away the property of a large group of presumably well-to-do persons — say, bondholders of the railroads — without compensation and without even colorable reason, they would not oppose it; they would be in favor of it. The liberty to have and hold property is not one they recognize. They believe only in the liberty to envy, hate and loot the man who has it. "Liberty and Democracy" in the Baltimore Evening Sun (13 April 1925), also in A Second Mencken Chrestomathy : New Selections from the Writings of America's Legendary Editor, Critic, and Wit(1994) edited by Terry Teachout, p. 35
schlimmYour quote is not from Mencken; it is a misattribution. The correct quote was the one I gave.
I'd just thought it was a different quote from a different essay -- but no, apparently not. I heard it from my father, who said he learned it about the time he first read 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life' in school (he couldn't pin it down any closer than that). A pity; it made a good quote and now I'll have to stop using it.
Ochlocracy strictly defined, the flip side of democracy according to Aristotle. (You will notice I tried to distinguish this from the 'madness of crowds' mob-rule sense of the word.)
As your quote so well points out, Mencken detested oligarchies (in Aristotle the flip side of 'aristocracy' properly defined) as well, particularly those that manipulated public matters. I find I share that with him.
WizlishOchlocracy strictly defined, the flip side of democracy according to Aristotle. (You will notice I tried to distinguish this from the 'madness of crowds' mob-rule sense of the word.)
The original Greek okhlokratia, from okhlos ("mob") and kratos (meaning "rule, power, strength"). In short, it means mob rule, now and to any ancient Greeks. It was first used by Polybius in 2nd century BCE.
[from Wiki] "Ancient Greek political thinkers regarded ochlocracy as one of the three "bad" forms of government (tyranny, oligarchy and ochlocracy) as opposed to the three "good" forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy). They distinguished "good" and "bad" according to whether the government form would act in the interest of the whole community ("good") or in the exclusive interests of a group or individual at the expense of justice ("bad")."
schlimmThe original Greek okhlokratia, from okhlos ("mob") and kratos (meaning "rule, power, strength"). In short, it means mob rule, now and to any ancient Greeks.
You need a better understanding of Greek than you can get from Wikipedia. It's a bit like the distinction between 'logos' and 'nomos'. "Ochlos" doesn't mean 'mob' (as in shorthand for mobile vulgaris); it means 'crowd' or 'multitude' -- or 'the common people' with perhaps the same nuance given by our contemporary use of 'hoi polloi', or Mr. Mencken on a bad day, or Cyril 'would you buy it for a quarter?' Kornbluth. (One group of Bible scholars, for example, finds 87 references of 'crowd' to one identifiable as 'mob' in the sense you mean.) It most certainly does NOT mean in and of itself merely the sort of enraged 'community organized' sans-culottery with emotionally driven dynamics that comes to mind when 'mobs' are mentioned. Polybius (in the Histories, book VI) is using the word metonymically, as a technical term for part of an 'inevitable' political progression that only reaches 'recognizable' violence when "community-organized" by the wrong sort of demagoguery.
I'm not sure that Polybian anacyclosis is any more inevitable or 'defined' than, say, Toynbean (or Marxist) progressions. He thinks it self-evident that 'the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; 9 and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.' (Remember he is describing the history of the Roman republic in this chapter of the Histories.) He also thinks that out of such a state of affairs, there will inevitably be a 'man on horseback' (or other individual) who will start the cycle over again with monarchy, now that the mass of the populace has experienced the consequences. I get the strong sense from a number of passages that the real 'problem' is not a tendency toward mob behavior, but a forgetting of the ills of earlier 'perversions' of government...
I think that you, Mencken, and Polybius are correct in noting where key distinctions between the two 'classical' types of popular government (democracy and ochlocracy) reside. There is the characteristic, as defined in Polybius, that 'during ochlocracy ... the people of the state will become corrupted, and will develop a sense of entitlement and will be conditioned to accept the pandering of demagogues.' That is very similar to the gist of what Mencken said in the quote you provided.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.