ATLANTA — One independent railroad professional sees New York Air Brake's recent automation break through as an incremental step to fully automated railroading. Gary Wolf, principal at Wolf Railway Consulting, tells Trains that New York Air Br...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/09/16-rail-consultant-new-york-air-brakes-feat-is-the-next-step-to-automated-railroading
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
First target of automation - Wolf Railway Consulting, boy has lost air and out of control descending Saluda Grade.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Two tiny little issues not addressed: grade crossings and cost.
How many trips will it take, realizing the alleged fuel savings, to offset the cost of the new system? And what railroads' Engineers was NYAB comparing itself with?
I also noticed in the photo that the test train was a unit train of all hoppers, which almost any first-year Engineer could run, even without a multi-million dollar computer system. Instead, run this new system with a PSR-monster mixed-manifest train in hogback territory, with a kicker or two added for fun, and get the train over the road on a subdivision greater that 48 miles....then I'll be impressed.
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