cx500 Equipment issues, negative cost/benefit, or management resistance to innovation; could be any of them.
Can't discount management resistance, and equipment issues are usually addressable. That leaves a negative cost/benefit - and I'm waiting to hear the advantages of stopping a routine train in a half mile instead of a mile when they are stopping for a hold-out because the yard is full...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
UP was testing ECP also. I was on one of the engines fully equipped for ECP once. I imagine the PTC mandate had a big part in shelving the testing.
I would also imagine that since more railroad cars are owned by private owners than railroads, that it wouldn't be just the railroads that might be resistant to a wholesale switch to ECP.
Jeff
Euclid oltmannd Euclid How do the Australian heavy haul ore railroads deal with unreliable ECP connectors? Are they simply more reliable because they are connected and disconnected less frequently when used on their unit trains? What makes a connector unreliable? What type of operator care is required in connecting and disconnecting the cable connectors? What is the exact technique used for connecting and disconnecting the connectors? With unit trains, you don't cut atn couple much. For US, "loose car" service, I think we really need a wireless trainline. Another alternative would be some sort of inductive connection in the glad hands. I believe someone was messing around with this a couple decades ago... With wireless, where would you get the power to operate all the car valves?
oltmannd Euclid How do the Australian heavy haul ore railroads deal with unreliable ECP connectors? Are they simply more reliable because they are connected and disconnected less frequently when used on their unit trains? What makes a connector unreliable? What type of operator care is required in connecting and disconnecting the cable connectors? What is the exact technique used for connecting and disconnecting the connectors? With unit trains, you don't cut atn couple much. For US, "loose car" service, I think we really need a wireless trainline. Another alternative would be some sort of inductive connection in the glad hands. I believe someone was messing around with this a couple decades ago...
Euclid How do the Australian heavy haul ore railroads deal with unreliable ECP connectors? Are they simply more reliable because they are connected and disconnected less frequently when used on their unit trains? What makes a connector unreliable? What type of operator care is required in connecting and disconnecting the cable connectors? What is the exact technique used for connecting and disconnecting the connectors?
With unit trains, you don't cut atn couple much.
For US, "loose car" service, I think we really need a wireless trainline. Another alternative would be some sort of inductive connection in the glad hands. I believe someone was messing around with this a couple decades ago...
With wireless, where would you get the power to operate all the car valves?
On board battery charged by generator built into wheel bearing plus solar.
https://news.timken.com/2004-09-20-Timken-Supplying-Intelligent-Rail-Bearing-Product-for-Federal-Railroad-Administration
https://www.herzog.com/innovation/ballast-unloading-machine-for-new-track-construction/
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
jeffhergert UP was testing ECP also. I was on one of the engines fully equipped for ECP once. I imagine the PTC mandate had a big part in shelving the testing. I would also imagine that since more railroad cars are owned by private owners than railroads, that it wouldn't be just the railroads that might be resistant to a wholesale switch to ECP. Jeff
A few years ago, I got to see a few pix from NS's ECP test trains. A good number of melted connectors....
tree68 cx500 Equipment issues, negative cost/benefit, or management resistance to innovation; could be any of them. Can't discount management resistance, and equipment issues are usually addressable. That leaves a negative cost/benefit - and I'm waiting to hear the advantages of stopping a routine train in a half mile instead of a mile when they are stopping for a hold-out because the yard is full...
Okay. I think think the benefits of ECP more than "better braking".
You can raise restricting speed - track conditioins permitting - because the improvement in braking is greater at low speed.
You can "bottle" trains during setout and pick ups. No more pumping air time.
You can have remote apply/release of hand/parking brake. No more having to walk a cut to apply and release brakes. No more dragging cars with handbrakes set.
You can know the status of the train's brakes without having to infer from flow meter and EOT and cab gauges.
Fewer UDEs. Fewer train dynamic caused knuckles/derailments.
You have a data backbone for employing full-time sensing and detection. Bearings hot/noisy, wheel flat/out of round, ride quality/truck hunting, etc.
Trains get out of terminals faster, have fewer problems on the road, get in and out of slower speed sections faster. Equipment utilization improves. Network fluidity improves. Trip speed goes up. Trip reliability goes up.
The only problem is that an ECP system that can do all this does not physically exist (yet...)
oltmannd tree68 cx500 Equipment issues, negative cost/benefit, or management resistance to innovation; could be any of them. Can't discount management resistance, and equipment issues are usually addressable. That leaves a negative cost/benefit - and I'm waiting to hear the advantages of stopping a routine train in a half mile instead of a mile when they are stopping for a hold-out because the yard is full... Okay. I think think the benefits of ECP more than "better braking". You can raise restricting speed - track conditioins permitting - because the improvement in braking is greater at low speed. You can "bottle" trains during setout and pick ups. No more pumping air time. You can have remote apply/release of hand/parking brake. No more having to walk a cut to apply and release brakes. No more dragging cars with handbrakes set. You can know the status of the train's brakes without having to infer from flow meter and EOT and cab gauges. Fewer UDEs. Fewer train dynamic caused knuckles/derailments. You have a data backbone for employing full-time sensing and detection. Bearings hot/noisy, wheel flat/out of round, ride quality/truck hunting, etc. Trains get out of terminals faster, have fewer problems on the road, get in and out of slower speed sections faster. Equipment utilization improves. Network fluidity improves. Trip speed goes up. Trip reliability goes up. The only problem is that an ECP system that can do all this does not physically exist (yet...)
ECP does not replace air power for braking power - it only replaces, in theory, the control function of air. To believe that the individual car ECP control systems won't have their own issues in actual operation is to believe that the Tooth Fairy is running for President and will win.
I have no idea what the in service tests of ECP highlighted as failure conditions. I have heard man esitmates of the cost of installing ECP on cars - in some case the costs I have heard are nearly as much as it cost to buy the car in the first place.
If ECP installed on individual cars is not compatible with the current standard of air brakes and can at least have train air line compatibility - if set out on line if road for whatever reason it will have to be handled as a car without brakes by other trains with standard air brakes in moving it to a shop location.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
With everything being web connected anymore, such as having toll collection RF transponders in our cars and cars having Wi-Fi repeaters in them, it seems that this is an issue that is waiting for someone to bite the bullet and do something positive. The thing that gets me is that there is too much inertia in the RR industry. The Westinghouse Air Brake design is over 100 years old and while it works, it has many flaws that need improvement. How we get there is beyond my "pay grade" but I hope better minds find a way. But technology will hopefully win out. I had an experice with technology this week that shows how far so things have come. I am recouperating from surgery up on Washington Island and forgot to bring my check book. I called and asked my daughter to retrieve it from my house and express it to me. She went to my house and when the external key pad for the garage door would not cause it to open, called me. I having a new internet connected garage door opener could remotely open the door from my cell phone. Problem solved. And we have been amazed how far we have come from the 40's when people had old party line phones.
Electroliner 1935I called and asked my daughter to retrieve it from my house and express it to me. She went to my house and when the external key pad for the garage door would not cause it to open, called me. I having a new internet connected garage door opener could remotely open the door from my cell phone. Problem solved. And we have been amazed how far we have come from the 40's when people had old party line phones.
So! Your proposing that we have train brakes be able to be applied by cell phone from a remote location?
Electroliner 1935The thing that gets me is that there is too much inertia in the RR industry. The Westinghouse Air Brake design is over 100 years old and while it works, it has many flaws that need improvement. How we get there is beyond my "pay grade" but I hope better minds find a way. But technology will hopefully win out.
I don't think it will win out in the case of ECP. The industry is simply unable to adopt it because the universal loose car system is wonderfully standardized and the number of cars is so vast. The logistics of a quick chaneover are impossible, and yet the benefits come in too slowly if the changeover is done over a reasonable amount if time, like say 20-30 years. So ECP will have to come by mandate if it is to happen at all. Or maybe Elon Musk can figure something out.
[quote "BaltACD"]So! Your proposing that we have train brakes be able to be applied by cell phone from a remote location? [/quote]
NO WAY. With all the hackers out in the world, that would be asking for trouble. And while the garage door opener uses encripted data, it is not as the expression says "A life threatning event" which the traincar braking system failure would be. I was just trying to indicate that technology may be able to overcome the issues previously raised against ECP. I still think that an oil company should buy an entire train set (cars and locomotives) equipped with ECP and put them into captive service. This would require spares and maintenance coverage. I don't know what it would take to motivate such a action except an embargo following a catastopic explosion like the Lac Megatanic one in a US City such as a Chicago Suburb
Euclid Electroliner 1935 The thing that gets me is that there is too much inertia in the RR industry. The Westinghouse Air Brake design is over 100 years old and while it works, it has many flaws that need improvement. How we get there is beyond my "pay grade" but I hope better minds find a way. But technology will hopefully win out. I don't think it will win out in the case of ECP. The industry is simply unable to adopt it because the universal loose car system is wonderfully standardized and the number of cars is so vast. The logistics of a quick chaneover are impossible, and yet the benefits come in too slowly if the changeover is done over a reasonable amount if time, like say 20-30 years. So ECP will have to come by mandate if it is to happen at all. Or maybe Elon Musk can figure something out.
Electroliner 1935 The thing that gets me is that there is too much inertia in the RR industry. The Westinghouse Air Brake design is over 100 years old and while it works, it has many flaws that need improvement. How we get there is beyond my "pay grade" but I hope better minds find a way. But technology will hopefully win out.
The biggest strike against ECP, for my 2 cents worth, is that the system as applied to cars will not meet the maintenance schedule for the current air brakes. 5 years.
The carriers want equipment to NOT REQUIRE ANY MAINTENANCE between FRA required inspection periods. Until ECP can demonstrate reliability approaching that of current air brakes or exceeding it, it will be a no go. That is 5 years in all the weather and customer conditions that rail cars are subject to during any 5 year period.
I think that ECP could make the biggest difference in terminals, rather than on the road.
Facilities were designed for shorter trains, and the time savings and capacity increase by quickening the time it takes to build the trains of today.
What I'd love to see is railroads do is go even further, by using ECP, DPU and train handling helper like an improved LEADER to create trains composed of individual blocks with their own locomotive that could be rapidly connected and split.
Running longer trains lowers the number of crew starts and requires fewer meets, running shorter trains more frequently lowers the penalty of missed connections and increases operational flexibility. If it's easy for blocks to be split on and off quickly, you can combine a lot of short trains into longer ones to get the benefits of both. ECP would substantially reduce the time penalty of block swapping, allowing for operating plans sending out an eastbound every hour, with whatever traffic is going that way on it, and traffic that misses the connection sitting for less than an hour, rather than up to 24 hours.
I think it would allow shorter corridors to better compete with trucks, particularly if you could simply detach something like an LA-Phoenix block from the back of an LA-Chicago freight with minimal delay to the rest of the traffic headed east.
NorthWest I think that ECP could make the biggest difference in terminals, rather than on the road. Facilities were designed for shorter trains, and the time savings and capacity increase by quickening the time it takes to build the trains of today. What I'd love to see is railroads do is go even further, by using ECP, DPU and train handling helper like an improved LEADER to create trains composed of individual blocks with their own locomotive that could be rapidly connected and split. Running longer trains lowers the number of crew starts and requires fewer meets, running shorter trains more frequently lowers the penalty of missed connections and increases operational flexibility. If it's easy for blocks to be split on and off quickly, you can combine a lot of short trains into longer ones to get the benefits of both. ECP would substantially reduce the time penalty of block swapping, allowing for operating plans sending out an eastbound every hour, with whatever traffic is going that way on it, and traffic that misses the connection sitting for less than an hour, rather than up to 24 hours. I think it would allow shorter corridors to better compete with trucks, particularly if you could simply detach something like an LA-Phoenix block from the back of an LA-Chicago freight with minimal delay to the rest of the traffic headed east.
I read once how the ecp system worked in an employee publication. I don't remember if it was a system special instructions or something on the web site. I can't find anything on it now. I save my old SSIs to might have to look through them.
I seem to recall when modifying the consist (picking up or setting out) each car (I think by intial and number) had to be entered or deleted from the consist for the system to properly recognize what cars were in the train. Possibly that could be done by the system downloading a new train list everytime a scheduled work event took place. Unplanned work would still need to be manually updated.
ECP is really something more suitable for unit type trains. Consists that don't change much between origina and destination. Not so much for carload or blocks of carload traffic. Which would fit in with their desire to kill off such business.
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