Black boxes

[BaltACD]

  I have seen the 8 track looking ones while working the service track. They are getting pretty old and can fall apart easily. BNSF has the Wi Fi ones and  now download at most major terminals ( just while passing by) plus we have cameras in almost all of the Dash 9's some are even being installed in SD 70 MACS,I have seen some in the rebuilt GP 38's and even a few SD 40's. The BN has a rule that a locomotive consist must have a camera in the lead unit if available.

  On the mooning story,dont moon your fellow approaching train as the RFE's dont want to see your hairy @$$!These tings record all is right. One of the mechanical guys said the mic is under the engineers side of the cab.But is sensitive enough to pick up sound while in the siding and you have your wondow open,it can hear you.

 

My understanding is the due to BLE/UTU agreements in the US, the microphones on video equipped engines are set to pick up extrior sounds...Horn, Bell etc.  They are not set up to capture routine cab chatter.  Canadian use may be different.

[route_rock]

  I have seen the 8 track looking ones while working the service track. They are getting pretty old and can fall apart easily. BNSF has the Wi Fi ones and  now download at most major terminals ( just while passing by) plus we have cameras in almost all of the Dash 9's some are even being installed in SD 70 MACS,I have seen some in the rebuilt GP 38's and even a few SD 40's. The BN has a rule that a locomotive consist must have a camera in the lead unit if available.

  On the mooning story,dont moon your fellow approaching train as the RFE's dont want to see your hairy @$$!These tings record all is right. One of the mechanical guys said the mic is under the engineers side of the cab.But is sensitive enough to pick up sound while in the siding and you have your wondow open,it can hear you.

 

[mudchicken]

The pulse tape recorders started out under the locomotive engineer's seat and control stand, below the floor in the battery boxes. They have migrated to behind the collision posts in the cab, dependent on cab/nose configuration and manufacturer. The issue is access and maintenance anymore.

[wabash1]

Ns has cameras on all 9000 series some 8800 series all 2600 and 2700 series and 7500+ series engines the date port is in the cab with the conductor and engineer , it reads speed throttle amps brake pipe and independant air pressures horn and eot reading. every second. the old engines recorded on 8 track tape type design but all the new engines read on a card no bigger than a credit card. and all of this info is interchangable meaning that a up official can down load a ns engines recorder to his cards and vice versa. the amount of info on these is 7 days on the old recorder was 3 days. the cameras roll 24/7 and record up to 72 hours before recording over. so if the guy at the street says i didnt use a flash or i wasnt standing on railroad property , or the gates was not down or lights flashing. trust me its on video, even if the engineer screws up its on video. if the conductor breaks a rule its on video if the light makes you reflect off the windshield watching your dvd player while sitting still its on video if you Moon the opposing trains crew Its on video also many of the up trains have them now also.

[beaulieu]

Thanks for your quick responses.    I did not realize that there was such a vast array of info that was collected.     Are these boxes located in the cab or further back in a protected enviroment in case of a severe accident?

 

They are located within the cab structure as this is the strongest part of the locomotive so as to protect the crew members. The amount of data stored is a function of the ability to store it, remember when a computer used a 1 megabyte floppy disc as its only storage medium? Now computers have memory measured in Gigabytes and are heading for Terabytes, this same technology affects Black Boxes too, although they must be hardened to survive collisions and fires. 

[rrnut282]

They use the video to verify that the crossing protection was working in case of grade-crossing accidents.  It can also prove the engineer blew the horn and had the bell ringing.

[MP173]

I know that NS has cameras mounted on some lead units. 

ed

[morseman]

Thanks for your quick responses.    I did not realize that there was such a vast array of info that was collected.     Are these boxes located in the cab or further back in a protected enviroment in case of a severe accident?

[Bruce Kelly]

The data that's downloaded from modern event recorders can be viewed as a linear graph showing conditions and actions throughout a given trip. At a wider view, you can read this data across several miles' worth of railroad, or zoom in to read it across an area of just a few hundred feet, and toggle left or right (backwards or forwards) through time and distance. This means being able to see train speed, throttle or dynamic brake settings, train brake handling, whistle use, etc., right down to fractions of a mile.

[beaulieu]

I have a smattering knowledge of the black boxes on locos which are examined after accidents, etc.  I don't know if this was brought up earlier, but could someone explain how much information is collected in them? Is there a standard box for every loco?    Are they examined on a routine basis or only after an accident?

 

While there isn't really a standard design, only a limited number of designs have been actually built. Newer models record more data, while older models collected more limited amount of data. There was a excellent article about this in Diesel Era magazine about 8-10 years ago. Older models used a tape cassette while newest ones use a flash type memory. Older ones required the tape to be remove and read off the locomotive, while newer ones required a laptop to be plugged into a dataport, the newest ones use Wi-Fi and are downloaded regularly when passing reader locations. The data readouts are used for accident investigations, and on the newer ones are used for train handling evaluation of the Engineers. One example mentioned in the Diesel Era article concerned a question on whether the Engineer of a WB train made the required brake test before descent of Cajon Pass, a check of the recorded Black Box information provided the answer. The newest Black Boxes also provide information for the Mechanical Department to evaluate problems and schedule maintenance on locomotives.

[morseman]

I have a smattering knowledge of the black boxes on locos which are examined after accidents, etc.  I don't know if this was brought up earlier, but could someone explain how much information is collected in them? Is there a standard box for every loco?    Are they examined on a routine basis or only after an accident?