Massive layoffs due to automation will create a huge problem of its own: what to do with all those people.. thay can't all be shoe salesman or astronauts. That problem needs to be addressed sooner than later or else we may have a revolution on our hands.
Dave,
Yes, I think there might be a practical, incremental way of getting there. Once this technology begins to get applied, in those areas where it has yet to be installed, the boxcars could STILL be delivered the old-fashioned way: With a switch engine.
As for those industries reachable by truck but not rail, that is just a bit more problematic. However, today there are almost uncountable businesses and industries located on or very near rail lines that are simply no longer using rail. Those kinds of shippers could be approached first. Then, if the system proves successful and cuts costs, more and more industries will look at industrial parks first that have rail access.
Think of what this could do. It might make the pick up and delivery of the loose car business profitable again and take untold trucks off the highways.
The problem with modern intermodal is that it only takes the very longest hauls off the highways then dumps all that heavy truck traffic onto more local roads in and around major container hubs.
It will never be possible to take all trucks off the roads nor would I necessarily even advocate that. But taking a good number off the roads would increase rail market share and make our cities, towns and highways a whole lot more livable.
Regards,
Fred M. Cain
Driverless trains have actually been around for a long time, at least in specialist applications. The Muskingum Electric Railroad had automatic trains from its opening in 1968.
I am with you on this. You are proposing the ideal loose-car frieght transportation system. As to whether there is a practical incremental way of geting there, that is another big question, and including financing and the number of businesses reachable by truck and not by rail, looks pretty unlikely to be realized. Have you thought about steps to its implementation?
DRIVERLESS BOXCARS
I kinda like the idea of Driverless boxcars. Before you dismiss the idea as completely absurd and totally impossible, let me explain.
switch7frg If and when all this driverless train does happen, I would bet some "hackers" would already have a program for this.
If and when all this driverless train does happen, I would bet some "hackers" would already have a program for this.
I would suspect that the guy 'driving' the train is not gonna get up from his desk and run out and do it? Not to mention, how are they going to reach the point of repair in a timely manner? Just askin'
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
As Jeff alluded to, the pieces for one man or automated operation are pretty much in place. Because we have very little practical experience with them there will be bugs to work out over the next few years with all the new systems. Railroads already have roving mechanical forces that can assist trains with problems. It wouldn't be a stretch to see a person who crosses craft lines and is both a utility person that can make set outs, operate RCL and other train crew type work and also a rapid response mechanical person who can fix knuckles, air hoses and other on line repairs. Which ever union decides to be the one to cross craft boundaries and allow dual training will get the work.
The mechanical issues would be relatively minor on the Rio Tinto, consistent cars, consistent mechanical standards, etc. Most of the air hose problems are due to the mix of car lengths and air hose arrangements, particularly on longer cars. But as railroads do rigorous analysis, they can eliminate those problems and incorporate the solutions on new cars. There were issues on reefers with air houses coming uncoupled, the railroad studied them extensively and figured out how to reposition the air hose to eliminate the problem.
One man or autonomous trains won't work everywhere, but I bet we see them within the next couple decades. Who would have guessed 50 years ago that the majority of yard engines wouldn't have an engineer?
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
My employer offers the option of four 10-hour days per week with the fifth day off or four 9-hour days per week with an eight-hour day on the fifth day of one week with the other fifth day off (comes out to 80 hours per pay period). These options are more popular when overtime isn't being offered.
Larry(tree68) wrote the following [in part]
"...I recall reading about a company that went to a twelve hour day, giving their employees a three-day workweek. Didn't last long, though. The employees found that they couldn't afford all that free time.
Let's say you like to camp. With four days off, you're going to take more elaborate trips - longer, further away. And that comes with a price tag..."
Before retiring, I had worked for a Trucking Company for the better part of 12 years, as a night dispatch operator. Our shift was 6PM to 6AM; wer worked four days on and four days off. We worked any holiday that fell on our rotation for work. The company rationalle was that we had so much time off that we did not need compensation forO/T, or holiday pay. The pay was not unfair, and was considered a pretty good wage for that time. Your off-time was your own; I held a part-time job with a company that was glad to work around my 'regular schedule'. Since my part-time was somewhat different than my full-time, it did work well for me. Once one gets into the 4 days on, 4 days off, routine and rhythm; scheduling work, and sleeping became routine .
[quote user="Euclid"]
Railroads don’t want ECP brakes because the cost is too high. Wait until they get the cost estimate for automated trains. They will be out there telling the world that automated trains really don’t do any good while the promotors tell us that driverless trains are safer. The railroads will tell us the technology is not ready for prime time.
Your expertise is showing. I guess you haven't heard of New York Air Brake's LEADER system or GE's Trip Optimizer. (I was told the algorithms used for PTC are the same for T-O.) LEADER's auto throttle version and T-O already run the train when engaged. Now they only operate throttle and dynamic brake, but I've been told that full air brake operation (This was for T-O) and the ability to start once stopped is close. Not only handling the air brake, the advanced verstion will also blow the horn in the proper sequence for crossings, something I still have to do. Currently, both systems don't recognize signals, they are a "clear block" system. I only have to take over if the signals are less than clear (LEADER can't handle crossover moves, T-O can) or if an unforseen speed restriction is given. PTC updates speed restrictions. If a speed restriction or crossing protection is put into the dispatcher's computer, updated for speed or removed entirely the onboard PTC system automatically updates. (Recently a dispr asked a train if they could comply with a crossing protection. They couldn't because they were almost on it at track speed. The dispr didn't verbally give it to them, but entered it into the computer system. The train's PTC still received it and put them into emergency.) I know there's at least one engine being tested with PTC and T-O integrated onto the same screen, but doesn't have the enhanced capability. But I was told the tech riding the test engine said it's not far off. We may not ever, for political concerns, have completely personless trains. But it may be the case where the person only takes over when the system fails. Assuming that person still retains the skills to do so. You can also be sure the remaining person won't be compensated close to what they currently are. (At least I'm hoping someone remains. I've got between 11 and 16 years, depending on a few different things, to go.)
Equally overpromised is the idea that futuristic technology will eliminate all jobs. This is now being sold by visionaries who say the solution is a guaranteed annual wage to save people from inevitable destitution from being displaced by robots.
I don't think anyone thinks automation will eliminate ALL jobs. The highest number I've seen about future unemployment predictions was 50%. The visionaries who say automation will open enough new (good stable middle class type) jobs for those that lose their old ones (IMO) are just as full of it. (I think maybe more so.) I think that because automation doesn't happen over night there won't be any uproar as entire jobs go away. As long as it is slow enough, and people buy into the philosophy that only certain types of jobs are worth doing while other jobs aren't, the sheople will be content.
Jeff
[quote]
Mining Man,
Well thought out and well spoken.
Norm
CSSHEGEWSCH- The "good guys" are us...you, Firelock, Overmod, Wanswheel, NDG, Dave Klepper and many other Forum contributors, ....my students are definitely the good guys, far from typical students they work on family trap lines and are exceptionally hearty outdoorsman, value family a great deal, have very few of the material things and live modest but enriched lives. It is encouraging, it is a choice.
James T. Kirk and Spock were good guys in our day, although fictional characters.
The bad guys want to destroy all that. Many in the media, entire companies and their philosophies are destructive, a rigged insider game within the economy destroys the fabric of capitalism and makes a mockery of it. What Americans have come to know as the "swamp" for political favours and corruption that has become entrenched. Google and Facebook control far far too much information and show signs of being manipulative and suppressing thought and differing opinions.
Bad guys have won for a long time...it's our turn. Hopefully.
Deggesty Quoting Euclid "Equally overpromised is the idea that futuristic technology will eliminate all jobs. This is now being sold by visionaries who say the solution is a guaranteed annual wage to save people from inevitable destitution from being displaced by robots. " People will be paid simply for existing?
Quoting Euclid "Equally overpromised is the idea that futuristic technology will eliminate all jobs. This is now being sold by visionaries who say the solution is a guaranteed annual wage to save people from inevitable destitution from being displaced by robots. "
People will be paid simply for existing?
Yes that is the idea unless they can find a job. The theory is that automation while being a good thing, will have the side effect of causing massive, insurmountable job loss. So finally the guaranteed annual wage that many on both the receiving and giving side have always dreamed of has stumbled upon a pretext as to why it must be instituted. It figures. The proposal is just as disengenous as the snake oil of selling futurism. It is a phony solution for a phony problem.
Johnny
Actually, I don’t believe driverless trains are right around the corner. Nor are self-driving trucks or self-driving cars, although for differing reasons. What is right around the corner is a continuation of this endless stream of Elon Musk style futurism laid out by visioners and their fantastic predictions. There is money to be made selling visions whether they are possible or not. People buy the vision because they don’t want to be seen as a knuckle-dragging Luddite. A healthy skepticism is always good, but people have become afraid to express it.
Driverless trucks and cars are each subject to differing agendas. Both are way overpromised. The politics of forcing the public to share the road with dangerous trucks only to enrich corporations will be impossible to overcome unless those trucking companies pay for their own roads. Self-driving cars are a green movement vision of sustainability, and it too is over-promised just like the rising seas and renewable energy.
This entire thread goes a long way in explaining why I have little respect for Elon Musk and his acolytes. He appears to have an abiding and misguided faith that advanced technology will solve the world's social problems. He also never tries to answer the question "Why should we do this?"
Miningman--Who are the good guys in which you have such an abiding faith?
Overmod-- Love that analysis on the economy and approaching a "singularity". There are warning signs everywhere. It is only resonable that we question them and dismiss it as the warnings were to our generation growing up, yet this is much much more than rock and roll music, swinging hips and transistor radios.
Still I like to think we are entering a decade or two were the good guys win for a change and the bad is pushed back 30 yards.
tree68 Overmod It was kinda fun to read about how increasing mechanization was going to give us more and more leisure time, until we'd only "have to work" about 4 hours a week, jet home in our flying car, and do whatever we thought people in the white-duck-trouser set did with all their time. I recall reading about a company that went to a twelve hour day, giving their employees a three-day workweek. Didn't last long, though. The employees found that they couldn't afford all that free time. Let's say you like to camp. With four days off, you're going to take more elaborate trips - longer, further away. And that comes with a price tag.
Overmod It was kinda fun to read about how increasing mechanization was going to give us more and more leisure time, until we'd only "have to work" about 4 hours a week, jet home in our flying car, and do whatever we thought people in the white-duck-trouser set did with all their time.
I recall reading about a company that went to a twelve hour day, giving their employees a three-day workweek. Didn't last long, though. The employees found that they couldn't afford all that free time.
Let's say you like to camp. With four days off, you're going to take more elaborate trips - longer, further away. And that comes with a price tag.
At the time I retired (BEHH) CSX Operations Center officials worked three 12 hour days with three days off - revolving around the week. At one time the officials traded between days and nights, however, they all agreed that such trading back and forth was much harder on them than staying all days or all nights.
AEHH ?????????????
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodIt was kinda fun to read about how increasing mechanization was going to give us more and more leisure time, until we'd only "have to work" about 4 hours a week, jet home in our flying car, and do whatever we thought people in the white-duck-trouser set did with all their time.
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...
oltmanndWhat farmer in 1880 knew that their great, great, great, grandkids would be computer programming in 1980?
Oh, there were some in that era who knew EXACTLY how automation would affect their grandkids -- remember the description of the girl running the farm in "Easy as ABC" who played the plough at Pirolo? Only the interface is different, and in fact Kipling's is much more the sort of high-level IxD that characterizes good functional applications...
The problem is that most of the 'middle-class' jobs that actually make the two ends of the pipelines (to invoke another SF story) line up are either gone or being deprecated, and there seem to be efforts everywhere we look to 'work with a wild will to build a more imperfect world' with dumber, less tolerant, easier to "shepherd" folks... who can't do much of anything a machine couldn't do better, were there anyone in or out of Bangalore who understood much about programming them to actually work.
It was kinda fun to read about how increasing mechanization was going to give us more and more leisure time, until we'd only "have to work" about 4 hours a week, jet home in our flying car, and do whatever we thought people in the white-duck-trouser set did with all their time.
I am beginning to worry about exactly how much 'satisfying' activity average people will engage in, vs. serving up more and more content from fatter and fatter cheap Internet pipes and the like. (Of course, I still remember how bad things were supposed to get with all the teenagers in the '50s yakking on the phone or keeping transistor radios to their ears all the time, and then how television was turning us all into short-little-span-of-attention entertainment junkies, but as we near the Singularity I'm beginning to wonder if current trends aren't the 'real thing' to be concerned about...)
Where this ties into railroading: there's a limit to how much intermodal traffic you can sustain in an economy that's primarily seeing 'wealth appreciation' through service. Yes, put two Yankees in a room and in an hour they'll have made $10 off each other, but how real is that in the long term, or in the face of organized financial manipulation? I would be concerned that in fact there are hard limits to the prospective traffic growth, or even continuity unless, say, the Chinese involve a much higher percentage of the money they're currently tapping off in targeted improvements to the actual United States economy...
zardoz Euclid It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating? Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee? Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO. When automation takes over, and AI designs and builds even better AI, what are we humans going to do with ourselves?
Euclid It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating?
It is hard to get an answer when you ask why Rio Tinto is going to driverless trains. Saving the cost of labor seems like the obvious answer, but what does that savings look like compared to the cost of automating?
Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee?
Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO.
When automation takes over, and AI designs and builds even better AI, what are we humans going to do with ourselves?
Probably the same thing we did as farming was mechanized - something new. What farmer in 1880 knew that their great, great, great, grandkids would be computer programming in 1980?
People find creating things by hand to be satisfying. People still enjoy cooking when they can eat out. People still hand sew quilts in an era where you can buy machine-sewn quilts for cheap. People still read and write books.
Or, we could just argue politics! (endlessly....)
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
If railroads shift to driverless trains, a lot of other operational details will have to change with that. Along with specializing mobile repair crews with hi-rail trucks, access roads will have to be added alongside all mainline tracks. In the west or other open, flat spaces like where Rio Tinto operates, the access roads will be already available or easy to add. It is hard to find a photo of Rio Tinto trains that does not show a prominent access road along the track.
In mountains with high fills and deep cuts, the roads will be difficult to add. But if this new access road infrastructure is needed to support automated running, and if the whole system is cost effective, then there is no reason why it cannot or will not be done. Even without automated running, this concept of carrying heavy components down the side of the ballast for thousands of feet seems like a problem that is long overdue for fixing.
OvermodPeople make altogether too much out of this broken-air-hose, pulled-knuckle stuff as an absolute impediment to small-crew or remote operations. It might be an hour or two longer response time but doesn't involve train crew leaving the locomotive in order to pull their backs lugging components down the length of the ballast prism.
Many lines are in places not accessible from vehicle. Even if you have a hi-railer, you are still going to have to lug components down the ballast. Probably further, as anyone with opearting experience can relate.
While some may make a big deal about line-of-road issues, it is downright foolish to ignore them as well.
And if you have a broken knuckle, coupler, pulled drawbar, etc you better hope and pray the airbrakes don't bleed off on the separated portion while the service truck takes 2 hours to get there, or else you are going to have a much, much, larger problem on your hands.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
From Ulrich-- and what happens as human labour is displaced and with it the spending power that wage earners have and use to buy more goods and services? Lots of stuff on the market but no-one to buy it
Ask Mark Cuban... many universities and economists talking about this...even the White House has had leaders from high tech and industry gathered together to discuss this.
My take-- Feudal societies In the future, ruled by a few "Lords" and their heirs ... the occasional but rare uprising.
So we have multiple 'train crews' in trucks around the property to fix defects rather than a single crew on the train. That sounds economical - NOT.
If I remember correctly, the Australians use a 'hi-rail' pickup truck or similar vehicle equipped with needed tools and equipment and kept stocked with the appropriate parts. A serviceperson drives the vehicle to the stopped train, changes out the parts, performs testing and service, and then goes wherever needed from there. It's not difficult to imagine multiple trucks in the equivalent of 'section houses' with van transport to them. People make altogether too much out of this broken-air-hose, pulled-knuckle stuff as an absolute impediment to small-crew or remote operations. It might be an hour or two longer response time but doesn't involve train crew leaving the locomotive in order to pull their backs lugging components down the length of the ballast prism.
Norm48327 Euclid BaltACD I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas? Probably a remote control drone run by someone in an office 100 miles away. I wonder what EHH thinks of driverless trains. Dream on.
Euclid BaltACD I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas? Probably a remote control drone run by someone in an office 100 miles away. I wonder what EHH thinks of driverless trains.
BaltACD I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas?
I wonder who will fix the burst air hose in remote areas?
Probably a remote control drone run by someone in an office 100 miles away.
I wonder what EHH thinks of driverless trains.
Dream on.
So what do they do when an air hose breaks? They must have a plan for that. After going to all the effort to automate running the trains, I doubt they are going to be blindsided by a broken air hose. They must have people who can respond to emergencies on very short notice. They probably also perform a relatively high quality of routine maintenance on their rolling stock and locomotives in order to reduce breakdowns. Since they own all of their equipment, they can probably keep very good track of maintenance.
zardoz wrote the following post[in part]:
"...Just like in grocery stores and Wal-marts...how much does each self-checkout kiosk cost, and how long does it take to recoup those costs when it is replacing a near-minimum-wage employee?
Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's and their ilk would prefer to not have any employees - just robots. I wonder how they'll feel when AI becomes so smart that it can make decisions better than any CEO..."
Can't speak to other parts of the Country, but out here we are seeing what amount to the'tip of the automation iceberg'.
A large regional convenience store chain is building new locations, and rehabilitating other of their brand. Their hot food [pizza, sandwiches, and the like] utilize a kiosk style order sustem, in which the customer enters an order...Shortly, the order is delivered by the single employee working in that area.. payment is made to a human cashier[ who are cycled through any number of tasks around the store, as well as operating the cash registers.
Some of the fast food chains are trying some of the same stuff in their stores...Their main problems seems to be at the Drive Thru; generally sound systems seem to be of poor quality, on both ends of their systems, and then the final pay out is handled by an employee unable to count back one's money, And the big surprise will be in the bag... Generally, it was ordered by someone ,who is in the line behind you.
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