I saw this on another site, where it was said Norfolk Southern is going to start using this system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6PBtPYb9DE&feature=youtu.be
The January Trains has an interview with the Wi-Tronix CEO. Although in the interview it's mostly about trespasser incidents, Wi-Tronix also has a fatigue/distraction system that use AI to monitor in cab camera video (and maybe realtime monitoring) and look for signs of fatigue or distraction. The item I saw in Railroad Age says the W-T monitor will look for possible distractions while moving like drinking (plain drinking like water, coffee, pop, etc.), eating, not sitting in an erect, upright position, etc.
One (actually a few more-maybe later) question. The rules require looking back frequently, especially on curves, and inspecting the train. The linked video says looking out the window for a few seconds is a distraction event. So, does this mean people will get fired for following the rules?
Jeff
PS. If you look closely at some shots of the video you'll see that Trains' webcam isn't the only one to have spider issues.
Interesting, in my car it works via detecting minute changes in lane positioning, corective action to lane positioning, response time to speed changes measured by brake pedal pressure. The steering wheel is vibrated if the car detects your not staying awake.........I don't think there is a distraction feature. If it keeps happening with the time between occurences decreasing then the radio is turned down in volume and a audio alarm starts with a image of a coffee cup illuminated on the dash.
jeffhergertThe linked video says looking out the window for a few seconds is a distraction event.
Not to mention that it's normal to look out the window at the ground to see if you're actually moving, when starting from a stop. Or keeping an eye on an oncoming car at a crossing, to see if they're going to stop. Whole lot of variables there...
I suspect there will be negotiations between labor and management as to what constitutes a distraction.
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...
tree68 jeffhergert Not to mention that it's normal to look out the window at the ground to see if you're actually moving, when starting from a stop. Or keeping an eye on an oncoming car at a crossing, to see if they're going to stop. Whole lot of variables there... I suspect there will be negotiations between labor and management as to what constitutes a distraction.
jeffhergert
Did not early diesel locomotives have a spring loaded peddle, that an engineer was required to keep depressed? If the engineer allowed it to move up, it caused an 'unscheduled' brake application(?).
Now someone has created an electronic device to force an engineer to sit bolt-up right, and focus straight ahead? Sounds sort of bizzare. A human being operating heavy equipment is going to move around in their seat, look around [fiddle, if you will?]. Certainly, to react to stimulus in their environment, and as Jeff H., said monitor the train, fore and aft; as well as the cab environment; not to mention interact with the other person in the cab, as they fulfill various operating situations, as required by rules and regulations of their company. juat my thoughts.
As someone who's not as physically and mentally capable as he used to be, I have to ask: This prevents fatigue how? (For some reason I'm still waiting on my January issue...I didn't think I'd see the day when my lifetime subscription expired.)
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)
samfp1943 Did not early diesel locomotives have a spring loaded peddle, that an engineer was required to keep depressed? If the engineer allowed it to move up, it caused an 'unscheduled' brake application(?).
Today we have the alerter - if nothing is done with any of the controls for a period of time you get a series of warnings, from a flashing light to some loud beeping. A push of a button resets it. In the yard it's about 20 seconds. Out on the road it's two minutes. Normally the button gets pushed as soon as the light starts flashing.
It's been said that the reset can reflexive - requiring no conscious thought. Flash, push, flash, push.
I've had times when the train has settled in nicely at a given throttle setting and about all I have to do is hit the alerter button every couple of minutes. In our territory, that's not often, but on a Class 1, there could be lengthy periods that are like that.
tree68 samfp1943 Did not early diesel locomotives have a spring loaded peddle, that an engineer was required to keep depressed? If the engineer allowed it to move up, it caused an 'unscheduled' brake application(?). Today we have the alerter - if nothing is done with any of the controls for a period of time you get a series of warnings, from a flashing light to some loud beeping. A push of a button resets it. In the yard it's about 20 seconds. Out on the road it's two minutes. Normally the button gets pushed as soon as the light starts flashing. It's been said that the reset can reflexive - requiring no conscious thought. Flash, push, flash, push. I've had times when the train has settled in nicely at a given throttle setting and about all I have to do is hit the alerter button every couple of minutes. In our territory, that's not often, but on a Class 1, there could be lengthy periods that are like that.
I've seen on NS and CSX engines a spring "whisker" that acknowledges the alerter. I like them. Some of our buttons need to be pushed 2 or 3 times to get it to make contact to reset. A few times I've just bailed off the independent to get it to reset because the button wasn't cooperating.
Once in a while you'll get one where the time period is set to 15 or 20 seconds. That get's annoying real fast. The worst was on a CP engine when I was firing on a bitterly cold winter's night. It started flashing and counting down at 15 seconds. When stopped, usually having the independent set nullifies the alerter. Not on this one, it required having the reverser set to neutral. But doing so on this engine caused the engine auto start/stop to want to shut down the engine immediately. The engine shutting down also shuts off the heat, and that wasn't going to happen. So I had to acknowledge the alerter every 15 seconds for about 3 hours while we sat waiting for MOW to repair a broken rail. It was at the same crossing, but not the same spot, where we sat the night before while they repaired a broken rail.
"Monitoring center alerted".
Yeah, you bet.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann "Monitoring center alerted". Yeah, you bet.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy SidingAnd if the person at the monitoring center has nodded off due to fatigue,
Or sheer boredom...
tree68 Murphy Siding And if the person at the monitoring center has nodded off due to fatigue, Or sheer boredom...
Murphy Siding And if the person at the monitoring center has nodded off due to fatigue,
I'd wager the monitoring center will be overloaded with alerts from detected "distractions". Some of the biggest distractions are the things they require us to use. Energy management systems, distributed power, PTC, even normal locomotive operations require looking at some kind of computer screen. Since there are a limited number of screens, sometimes you have to page through them to find what you need for a specific operation. Depending on how sensative the system is set, the alerts will be constant.
jeffhergertOnce in a while you'll get one where the time period is set to 15 or 20 seconds. That get's annoying real fast.
.
jeffhergertSome of the biggest distractions are the things they require us to use..
Fatigue prevention would work on the cause of fatigue. This system does not do that, but hats off to the marketing person that decided to use the word "prevention" instead of "detection" - which is what this thing actually does.
The detection thing is fine, provided it's not just another "hammer" or an excuse not to figure out how to do real fatigue prevention (starts that match circadian rhythm) and fatigue mitigation (naps!).
It's amazing to me how much time, effort, words and money the RRs spend on the fatigue issue without actually addressing the real cause and cures.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Murphy Siding zugmann "Monitoring center alerted". Yeah, you bet. And if the person at the monitoring center has nodded off due to fatigue, then what?
And if the person at the monitoring center has nodded off due to fatigue, then what?
Eventually there will be a bunch of C3-PO's running their trains, AI's will be making corporate decisions, and Skynet will be running everything.
oltmanndThe detection thing is fine, provided it's not just another "hammer" or an excuse not to figure out how to do real fatigue prevention (starts that match circadian rhythm) and fatigue mitigation (naps!).
That was funny.
zardozEventually there will be a bunch of C3-PO's running their trains, AI's will be making corporate decisions, and Skynet will be running everything.
jeffhergert I've seen on NS and CSX engines a spring "whisker" that acknowledges the alerter. I like them. Some of our buttons need to be pushed 2 or 3 times to get it to make contact to reset. A few times I've just bailed off the independent to get it to reset because the button wasn't cooperating. Once in a while you'll get one where the time period is set to 15 or 20 seconds. That get's annoying real fast. The worst was on a CP engine when I was firing on a bitterly cold winter's night. It started flashing and counting down at 15 seconds. When stopped, usually having the independent set nullifies the alerter. Not on this one, it required having the reverser set to neutral. But doing so on this engine caused the engine auto start/stop to want to shut down the engine immediately. The engine shutting down also shuts off the heat, and that wasn't going to happen. So I had to acknowledge the alerter every 15 seconds for about 3 hours while we sat waiting for MOW to repair a broken rail. It was at the same crossing, but not the same spot, where we sat the night before while they repaired a broken rail. Jeff
A bunch of the ex-CSX Dash-8's CN is currently leasing have those too. Before them I had only seen the springy toggles on the simulators at our Winnipeg training centre. I like them too.
Try neutral and throttle 1 next time you are stopped. Works pretty good on our units.
On ours having the reverser in forward activates the alerter, even if the independent is fully applied.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
zugmann oltmannd The detection thing is fine, provided it's not just another "hammer" or an excuse not to figure out how to do real fatigue prevention (starts that match circadian rhythm) and fatigue mitigation (naps!). That was funny.
oltmannd The detection thing is fine, provided it's not just another "hammer" or an excuse not to figure out how to do real fatigue prevention (starts that match circadian rhythm) and fatigue mitigation (naps!).
Only cause it's true.
oltmanndoltmannd wrote the following post yesterday: Fatigue prevention would work on the cause of fatigue. This system does not do that,
Unfortunately true. More predictable work scheduling would certainly help. But punishing/firing operators is cheaper to beaancounters.
Yeah. Unfortunately.
SD70DudeTry neutral and throttle 1 next time you are stopped. Works pretty good on our units.
You'll get tattled on if you do that in ours.
dwill49965fatigue monitoring.
Because it's based on your perspective I guess. Some people feel that at the first sign of fatigue you should pull over and get rest. Others feel they can drink some coffee and continue on until their body is on the verge of involuntary unconsicousness. Thats how I interpreted the difference. It's not that either side is incorrect, it's a matter of perspective.
CSX did have allowed napping in specific circumstances - until EHH came on the property.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
zugmann SD70Dude Try neutral and throttle 1 next time you are stopped. Works pretty good on our units. You'll get tattled on if you do that in ours.
SD70Dude Try neutral and throttle 1 next time you are stopped. Works pretty good on our units.
I should have known.
For half the year out here it's almost essential to defeat Autostop, as it still likes to shut engines down when the temperature is below freezing (even though it is not supposed to). Some of the retrofitted older units don't reliably restart automatically either.
DP remotes will shut down independently of the lead consist, and not tell you when they do it. Or when they restart.
One of the benefits of CN having a understaffed and overworked management is that they can't pay attention to everything. For example, over the past year no one has seemed to care much about violating throttle restrictions. Why? Because the fellow who manned the Fuel Desk in Edmonton retired, and they never replaced him! So while Wi-Tronix still generates all those tattling alerts, no one has been reading them.
BaltACD CSX did have allowed napping in specific circumstances - until EHH came on the property.
Doesn't at least one of the American rulebooks (GCOR?) allow for napping?
When CN was first implementing extended crew districts the Company and Union were having a lot of discussions about fatigue, and several pilot programs were started. New locomotives were ordered with fully reclining seats (Baultar's "Sleepr" model), napping while stopped was allowed, and extended run crews could even request to be put into a siding for 15 or 20 minutes to take a power nap.
But nothing ever came of all that, and now the trainmasters sneak onto stopped locomotives to try and catch people sleeping.
dwill49965I just watched the video linked in the first post. Nowhere does it say or mention anything about a fatigue PREVENTION system. The only place that FATIGUE PREVENTION is mentioned is in the title of this thread, and it is mentioned a few times by different posters. The video is about fatigue monitoring.
GCOR allows it, but I've heard that some local areas are starting to ban it as PSR takes effect.
One other reason to not let the lead engine shut down. It can wipe out all the PTC information requiring a full reintialization, including the departure test.
jeffhergertGCOR allows it, but I've heard that some local areas are starting to ban it as PSR takes effect. One other reason to not let the lead engine shut down. It can wipe out all the PTC information requiring a full reintialization, including the departure test. Jeff
The higher tech the various systems get, the more they start conflicting each other.
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