Im sure it was a problem in the older days, Mom was waybill keypunch clerk for Frisco and that was a way of tracking the cars and charges. Each RR had a code and she would enter that info from the waybill. Somehow I guess they all figured it out, I never saw a train unless it was shortline that had only its' own cars in a consist. Parents and I would try to find Frisco cars on our trips, they'd be all over, farthest we ever saw was in WY.
CShaveRRI'm wondering whether the AEI system is living up to its full potential. I think some folks look on it as a necessary evil rather than a valuable resource.
Depends on the railroad. Some leverage the systems more than others. AEI readers can be configured to do different things (depending on the model and software). Some update the consist, some don't.
For example the scanner can read the consist, feed the data to the railroad computer system where it can update the consist, make pick ups and set outs for the cars added or subtracted, run a consist check for hazardous and train placement errors, then send out alerts to the dispatching office and field on any exceptions taken so they can be verified and corrected if legitimate.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
In college I punched cards on an IBM 029 or 129 for input to the IBM 360 (?) we used for Fortran classes.
Whilst working for DOD, we did it all electronically. The data was keyed into a dedicated electronic machine (and verified in the same machine), then downloaded to a tape for transfer to the processing computer.
As I mentioned, eventually the customers started doing their own input and all semblance of keypunching disappeared. In fact, my last office before retiring was in what was originally intended to be the keypunch section when our new building was designed.
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...
[quote user="tree68"]
Paul of Covington Picture a room full of women (I don't remember ever seeing a male operator),
I did it for a while. My typing speed isn't exactly superhuman, but I get by. Keypunching does put me to sleep, though.
Biggest problem I ran into was when one of the other keypunchers verified my work (which involves rekeying all of the data) - she tended to make the same errors I did, so goofs sometimes slipped through...
[/quote] You were not alone, tree68; I was also involved in some data entry, and the keypunch/data entry for an engineering firm back in the 1960's; It could become so monotonous.. Almost like sleep walking. The issue we had was that verification took countless passes through card sorting machines, to cull the results. [ Checking and checking was labor intensive, and boring work. What drove us was that the machine (IBM7094) to 'run' our program cost on the order of $12 K, a min. It took around 5 minutes to 'run' the program, after it was 'loaded'; The cards comprised approximately a small van full of boxes of cards. ]
English-as-Second-Language speakers/ writers have sometimes been used to avoid that flaw. The different mindset and familiarity makes them less prone to the same errors.
- Paul North.
Paul of CovingtonPicture a room full of women (I don't remember ever seeing a male operator),
Speaking of programs on cards, as I recall, the programmer usually wrote the program on paper which was then transferred to cards by keypunch operators, so assuming he still had the original paper, the keypunch operators could probably produce a new deck in little time.
Speaking of keypunch operators, they always amazed me. Picture a room full of women (I don't remember ever seeing a male operator), fingers flying over the keyboards, punches roaring, all the while carrying on a continuous conversation with each other about everything like recipes, diets, Elvis, sky-diving and whatever. They had separated their minds into two separate channels: eyes to fingers and ears to mouths. The human mind is amazing, except mine. I have never been able to do more than one thing at a time.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Pure data cards (ie, inventory, personnel records) aren't as bad as a program. Odds are the data cards can be sorted (a process in and of itself). But a program (especially a very large one) might have dozens of cards with exactly the same instruction on them, all intended to fit within the routine that contains them.
Assuming the cards had been printed as well as punched, re-sorting that many would be akin to completely re-writing the program. And re-writing the program may have been easier.
While in college, I wrote a program that ran to almost 2000 cards. I never dropped them, and really don't remember what might have happened to them once the course was over. They likely were recycled or put straight in the trash.
While cards could be "backed up," either by cutting another set or transferring them to tape, it wasn't a simple as copy and paste...
I saw an engineer litterally burst into tears when he was bumped while carrying TWO "Drawers" (4000 cards EACH) of data cards and they spilled onto the floor. No, they were not sequenced and even after I and several others worked very hard at picking them up, trying to keep the sequence, he just dumped them all into the large round trashcan and went home. I never saw him again, but it was a very large company and I didn't normally frequent that area so I don't know what happened after that.
Sad!
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
How do railways keep track?
They tie it down, of course! Spikes and anchors also help.Please don't mind me...just a little gallows humor before surgery.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Electroliner 1935 The fear of programers was after your program was punched, was that the cards might get dropped and wind up out of order. A real 52 pickup fear. Those were the days. RIP.
The fear of programers was after your program was punched, was that the cards might get dropped and wind up out of order. A real 52 pickup fear. Those were the days. RIP.
Most rookie programmers learned the hard way or by close observation that there was a very good reason for reserving the last 8 columns of a standard card for sequence numbers. However, no sequenced deck was ever known to be dropped.
ChuckAllen, TX
CShaveRRI'm wondering whether the AEI system is living up to its full potential. I think some folks look on it as a necessary evil rather than a valuable resource.Not too long before I retired (maybe in 2004 or 2005 or so) we had a train that showed up with everything out of line--it was as if the hump shove started in the center of the train, and started out toward both ends by twos and threes (talk about your game of 52 Pickup!). Somehow this mess was generated by the yard that put the train together for us (I can't remember if it was elsewhere on UP or on a foreign line). Of course, we had to put the cars in order--a fairly simple matter to update each car one by one, so that our trains lined up.While we were in the middle of trying to hump that thing, I asked our General Yardmaster if it was possible to get an AEI report on the train. The request was probably too late for the hump shove we were working on, but the train had taken up two tracks in the receiving yard, and we were able to make a little sense of the train. Too bad we couldn't have generated a switch list from the AEI read.
Each carriers data systems have detail differences - as the Trains article on train identification for each of the Class 1 carriers highlighted. I only know the system my carrier uses.
To a greater extent than not, each terminal has a scanner in place to monitor movements arriving and/or departing in the major line of road lines. Some terminals also have scanners within their defined yard area to monitor signifigent moves. The raw data results of these scanners are available to virtually anyone in the company - if you know the proper computer application and how the train and/or move can be identified - in broad terms - you can search by Train ID, Scanner Location, Car Number. Data for these scans remain accessable for at least 30 days.
The raw data from the scanners gets 'worked' by the Customer Service organization to form a Work Order. The Work Order is the basic working document that line of road crews must have in their possession and make available to local authorities when necessary. The Work Order from a Originating terminal is a correct as the Yardmaster and his crews are able to make it; the originating Work Order gets 'verified' when the train passes the first scanner after departure - any discrepancies are verbally communitcated to the crew by the Train Dispatcher, if HAZMAT is involved a 'radio waybill' will be verbally transmitted with the appropriate data necessary. Conductors are responsible for having a accurate Work Order; if found that they didn't update the Work Order to indicate the work the crew has performed with the train they can be disciplined. If Yardmasters consistantly create erroneous Work Orders they are subject to discipline.
In 21st Century railroading accurate data is critical.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CShaveRR Too bad we couldn't have generated a switch list from the AEI read.
Too bad we couldn't have generated a switch list from the AEI read.
Guess the technology has advanced, we do that every day now on CN.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
I'm wondering whether the AEI system is living up to its full potential. I think some folks look on it as a necessary evil rather than a valuable resource.Not too long before I retired (maybe in 2004 or 2005 or so) we had a train that showed up with everything out of line--it was as if the hump shove started in the center of the train, and started out toward both ends by twos and threes (talk about your game of 52 Pickup!). Somehow this mess was generated by the yard that put the train together for us (I can't remember if it was elsewhere on UP or on a foreign line). Of course, we had to put the cars in order--a fairly simple matter to update each car one by one, so that our trains lined up.While we were in the middle of trying to hump that thing, I asked our General Yardmaster if it was possible to get an AEI report on the train. The request was probably too late for the hump shove we were working on, but the train had taken up two tracks in the receiving yard, and we were able to make a little sense of the train. Too bad we couldn't have generated a switch list from the AEI read.
MC,
Don't worry. They'll find someone else to blame.
Norm
AEI Readers - Amazing what non-railroaders think those things are. (takes the restraining devices in a 4-wheeled railroad shipping device in a whole 'nother direction.)
Still grinning here after watching an AED Device at South Denver (Union Pacific's) get sucked into the ground after an RTD/ Sprint construction relocation project went really wrong. A power backhoe snagged a buried railroad signal cable and all of a sudden the AEI detector triangular truss frames started wobblin' and the actual scanner hardware antenna got yanked up the frame , followed by the 4 ft tall frame and the reader sinking rapidly into the ground. Four AEI antennas died that day. (Life imitating art, like the Bugs Bunny/ Chip & Dale cartoons with the carrots/ row crops getting sucked into the ground by some hungry critter.)
Some systems let you number the lines. The trick was to initially number them with enough room to be able to add several lines without having to renumber the whole danged program. I usually started with a gap of ten (10, 20, 30...). Major sections might start with the next even hundred.
It wasn't in a railroad environment, but I ran tens of thousands of cards through the punches and readers whilst working in data processing. Several jobs would generate several boxes of cards (2000 per), almost daily.
Interpreting the cards (printing the encoded data on the cards) was a separate operation if the cards were for specific purposes and the print ran to two lines, in specific locations. Time cards and supply system cards were two examples.
The cards were made of high-quality card stock. Putting rubber bands around small batches could be a challenge, as the cards easily cut the bands.
Like five-level teletype, it was possible to read the cards, once you understood the language.
Running a keypunch machine was fun, too... We were very glad when we went from actually punching cards to an electronic method, and then to the customers doing their own input...
A brief description of the use of punched cards in the 1900 census is found in the January 1900 issue of National Geographic, pages 34-36, in an article by Dr F. H. Wines. By that time, Hollerith had also begun to work with the New York Central and Hudson Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad on applying cards to their data processing problems. The NYC&H use of punched cards was described in the Railroad Gazette on July 4, 1902, and reprinted a year later. This article has a good image of a Hollerith card from around 1900, and line-images of the tabulating machines. More early card images were published in the American Engineer and Railway Journal, Dec. 1906; page 468. All of the cards illustrated from these early railroad applications have 12 rows of 36 punch positions.
http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/history.html
Railroads were pioneers of do not fold, spindle, or mutilate.
I addition all the major roads have computer inventory systems that keep track of the locations of each car, which track or train its on and the position/sequence in that track. Most systems have been in place since the mid to late 1970's in one form or another. Most systems have undergone several revisions over the decades. The systems are updated by a combination of automatic systems (AEI and dispatching) and manual inputs (conductors, yardmasters and clerks).
BaltACD Buslist dh28473 how do they keep track where their cars are and how are they paid for the use of the car? thanks... currently each car has an RFID tag on both sides, its location is reported every time it passes a reader. There is a daily "rental" rate for each car. The RFID tags are also used at many defect detectors to identify the bad acting car. Per Diem has been on an hourly basis since the late 60's or early 70's. When cars move from carrier to carrier a forma 'Interchange Report' is made that lists the time and the car numbers. Each carriers computer systems keep track of the cars and the interchages. The AAR has a computer system that each carriers computer system report their moves to. Many customers deal with the AAR's data systems to get accurate data on their nationwide car movements.
Buslist dh28473 how do they keep track where their cars are and how are they paid for the use of the car? thanks... currently each car has an RFID tag on both sides, its location is reported every time it passes a reader. There is a daily "rental" rate for each car. The RFID tags are also used at many defect detectors to identify the bad acting car.
dh28473 how do they keep track where their cars are and how are they paid for the use of the car? thanks...
how do they keep track where their cars are and how are they paid for the use of the car? thanks...
currently each car has an RFID tag on both sides, its location is reported every time it passes a reader. There is a daily "rental" rate for each car.
The RFID tags are also used at many defect detectors to identify the bad acting car.
Per Diem has been on an hourly basis since the late 60's or early 70's. When cars move from carrier to carrier a forma 'Interchange Report' is made that lists the time and the car numbers. Each carriers computer systems keep track of the cars and the interchages. The AAR has a computer system that each carriers computer system report their moves to. Many customers deal with the AAR's data systems to get accurate data on their nationwide car movements.
The data system belongs to Rail Inc. Which is a wholly owned for profit subsidiary of the AAR, just like TTCI. However Rail Inc. is based in Cary NC.
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