As someone who deals with the reality of extra sensors and the havoc they can cause whenever they fail in a harsher operating environment let me say a few things. We've had a truck shutdown over a 2 dollar connector for a sensor that broke and then disconnected from the sensor. Whenever you lose a sensor it the computer it's reading it has a choice zero or redline the reading. If they pick zero for the default then the worst case scenario is a repeat of this accident. The other way is a delay of the train. Which way with current management do you think they'll go.
SD60MAC9500 In this case it's not about "save them money".. 75% of the North American car fleet is private.. What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection?
In this case it's not about "save them money".. 75% of the North American car fleet is private.. What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection?
One incentive would be liability and insurance.
I'd be interested to see the maintenance history of the car, specifically when the last time the bearings were inspected. This is more for whether the bearing was coming due for maintenance as opposed to negect on the car owners part.
Erik_Mag SD60MAC9500 In this case it's not about "save them money".. 75% of the North American car fleet is private.. What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection? One incentive would be liability and insurance. I'd be interested to see the maintenance history of the car, specifically when the last time the bearings were inspected. This is more for whether the bearing was coming due for maintenance as opposed to negect on the car owners part.
All that data will be provided in the FINAL NTSB report on the incident, and more!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
That would be AAR Form MD-11 for roller bearing inspection. You can bet the NTSB is collecting all that data.
I can tell you this much. From the cars we have in our SIT yards whenever they become due for anything inspection wise the car owners have a FRA certified contractor there to do anything maintenance related. We've literally seen them change out axles on cars due to a flat spot. Yet I hear TTX cars going down the tracks banging to beat the band.
Amtrak has sensors on some its car's axels. What cars have those sensors? What do they monitor?. How are the pickup's reading transmitted and where does that information go ?. Who has access to the information ? How long is the information kept.? How is a warning transmitted to crew when there is a major hazard since crew does not stay on same radio frequency ?
blue streak 1Amtrak has sensors on some its car's axels. What cars have those sensors? What do they monitor?. How are the pickup's reading transmitted and where does that information go ?. Who has access to the information ? How long is the information kept.? How is a warning transmitted to crew when there is a major hazard since crew does not stay on same radio frequency ?
My belief is that all Amtrak passenger cars have on board hot bearing detection equipment. My understanding is that this equipment detects objectionalbe heat at a lower level than carrier detectors. Amtrak can still activate the carriers HBD's and other detectors. Since Conductors and Asst. Conductors are routinely moving throughout their trains, I believe alarms are triggered on the cars involved.
What about baggage cars and private cars?
SD60MAC9500 That would be AAR Form MD-11 for roller bearing inspection. You can bet the NTSB is collecting all that data.
I would be surprised if there is enouh left of the bearing to determine a root cause for the failure, so maintenance records would be the best place for finding clues.
Part of my interest in bearing performance comes from a brief discussion with a Timken researcher who said that they ere able to extend the life of bearings by a factor of 10 by making better steel. Number 1 change was reducing inclusions as they were largely responsible for the micro cracks associated with metal fatigue. One thought was that the bearing may have been exposed to something that generated inclusions in the bearing steel, e.g. hydrogen.
As for continuous monitoring of the bearings, one of the early warning signs is high frequency (100 - 300 kHz) acoustic emissions from the bearing which results from disclocations in the steel's crystal structure in the process of the metal deforming. I would think the background noise of the wheel rolling on rail would be quite a challenge. OTOH, I wonder if it would be possible to develop a wayside detector that listened for the signs of a failing bearing.
I think they have or are testing acoustic bearing detectors.
Jeff
I'm curious, could many of these detection and braking issues be solved by simply running significantly shorter trains? I know that means higher labor costs, but instituting ECP braking and installing onboard sensors isn't going to be cheap either.
Psychot I'm curious, could many of these detection and braking issues be solved by simply running significantly shorter trains? I know that means higher labor costs, but instituting ECP braking and installing onboard sensors isn't going to be cheap either.
I would opine that train length would have zero impact on a bearing failure such as we are discussing. The only thing that might change would be the number of cars in the pile-up.
The wayside detectors are going to work the same for a ten car train and a three mile long train. The only difference will probably be when the "results" are reported, which for a no defects train is after the last car clears the detector.
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...
SD60MAC9500What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection?
None. There is no incentive, aside from possibly the aforementioned insurance issue. There are, however, powerful disincentives.
Disincentives have been more commonly used for railroad safety appliances than incentives anyhow. You use this kind of coupler? Can't be interchanged. You use this kind of wheel? Can't be interchanged. You use this kind of bearing? Can't be interchanged. You have a roofwalk (on things that don't have roof hatches)? Can't be interchanged. Don't have a COTS panel? Can't be interchanged. Don't have AEI tags? Can't be interchanged.
Maybe the next one is "don't have bearing temperature monitors? Can't be interchanged."
NittanyLionMaybe the next one is "don't have bearing temperature monitors? Can't be interchanged."
You'd need an AAR committee to recommend the appropriate standard(s) for the onboard system and its interfacing. My own preference would be a slightly extended version of one (or more) of the current methods that private owners of hazmat cars use for their monitoring (cf. Olin for chlorine). Note that even fairly rudimentary carriers on Starlink can easily accommodate all the onboard monitoring the AAR could wish...
Once there is a working standard, multiple manufacturers can 'enter the space' simultaneously to reduce the implementation time.
Amsted Digital appears to be selling a bearing temperature monitoring system: https://www.amsteddigital.com/solutions/ They were just starting to work on it in 2007 when I last worked for them in Granite City. The plan then was to have the elastomeric pad that sits above the bearing adapter, and came in with M-976 trucks, outfitted with the sensors.
Brenco is part of the Amsted family and as I understand, is the largest supplier of railroad axle bearings - I wonder whose bearing failed; Brenco, Timken, or one of the other suppliers. I'm sure we'll learn in the NTSB final report.
NittanyLion SD60MAC9500 What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection? None. There is no incentive, aside from possibly the aforementioned insurance issue. There are, however, powerful disincentives. Disincentives have been more commonly used for railroad safety appliances than incentives anyhow. You use this kind of coupler? Can't be interchanged. You use this kind of wheel? Can't be interchanged. You use this kind of bearing? Can't be interchanged. You have a roofwalk (on things that don't have roof hatches)? Can't be interchanged. Don't have a COTS panel? Can't be interchanged. Don't have AEI tags? Can't be interchanged. Maybe the next one is "don't have bearing temperature monitors? Can't be interchanged."
SD60MAC9500 What incentive would be needed for them to absorb the cost of onboard bearing monitioring and detection?
EuclidIt is a testament to GM for having the marketing prowess to get the entire industry to dieselize overnight.
There was no way to fail with that mission. GM just happened to be at the forefront, plus WWII happened. IIRC ALCO was forced to stick with making steam locomotives.
The cuts in manpower that have occurred with PSR are a drop in the bucket when compared to how many employees the railroads were able to shed by closing down their steam facilities.
One of the main reasons steam hung on as long as it did with some railroads was because they had a vested interest in their primary fuel - coal.
tree68 Psychot I'm curious, could many of these detection and braking issues be solved by simply running significantly shorter trains? I know that means higher labor costs, but instituting ECP braking and installing onboard sensors isn't going to be cheap either. I would opine that train length would have zero impact on a bearing failure such as we are discussing. The only thing that might change would be the number of cars in the pile-up. The wayside detectors are going to work the same for a ten car train and a three mile long train. The only difference will probably be when the "results" are reported, which for a no defects train is after the last car clears the detector.
I guess my line of thinking from the detection standpoint is that if you had a 50-car train with a crewed caboose on the back, the odds that a problem would be detected in a timely manner would theoretically increase - and if a problem was detected, the train could stop much faster.
Ulrich And then there are the big picture considerations that have nothing to do with technology..i.e. does it make sense to truck Christmas trees from Oregon to Ontario?..ship bottled water from Ontario to Texas?..cardboard from New Jersey to California?..widgets from China?
And then there are the big picture considerations that have nothing to do with technology..i.e. does it make sense to truck Christmas trees from Oregon to Ontario?..ship bottled water from Ontario to Texas?..cardboard from New Jersey to California?..widgets from China?
Backshop Ulrich And then there are the big picture considerations that have nothing to do with technology..i.e. does it make sense to truck Christmas trees from Oregon to Ontario?..ship bottled water from Ontario to Texas?..cardboard from New Jersey to California?..widgets from China? Garbage from Toronto to suburban Detroit? It's not like Canada doesn't have plenty of its own vacant land...
Garbage from Toronto to suburban Detroit? It's not like Canada doesn't have plenty of its own vacant land...
Toronto's garbage (mis)management is worthy of its own thread, and there is a rail component to the story. While they did truck to Carleton Farms in Michigan for years and currently use a site called Green Lane along Highway 401 southwest of London there was a proposal back in the 1990s to convert an abandoned open pit iron mine near Kirkland Lake into a landfill. CN and Ontario Northland would have transported the trash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Mine
My favourite part is how a couple city councillors parodied the idea by playing a Simpsons episode during a council meeting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_of_the_Titans
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
On the original question of on-board sensors to prevent accidrnts:
Let's look a little bit at the FRA's accident data for 2018 - 2022:
- 600 mainline accidents with "equipment" (engines and cars) as the primary cause, resulting in $206M of FRA-reportable damages, 2 employee fatalities, 6 employee injuries, 10 hazmat car releases, and 4 people evacuated.- Of these, 136 incidents, $31M in damages, 2 employee injuries, 3 hazmat car release, and all 4 evacuees were due to LOCOMOTIVE defects. Right away that shows you that the presence of power and data on-board a car will not prevent that car from causing accidents- Roller bearing failure was the leading mechanical cause in terms of both # of accidents and monetary damages: 82 incidents, $42M damages, 1 injury, no hazmat.- Broken wheels and axles, which are oft n undetectable prior to failure except by ultrasonic inspection, accounted for 65 accidents, $48M in damages, and 2 hazmat car releases.- Obstructed brake lines accounted for two expensive accidents ($8M total) that might have been prevented with ECP brakesEverything below that is less than $1M per year in damages for each cause, and each cause would require a separate sensor to prevent.So frankly roller bearing failure is your best bet for making a safety case for on-board sensors. Let's do some math. We'll assume that FRA-reportable costs are about half of the overall economic loss from an accident, so over 5 years the cost of roller-bearing failure was $100M. If we peak past the available statistics into 2023, then we can see that there are some even more extremely rare but extremely expensive accidents that can also result. Let's say those happen once every ten years and cost $100M, so the yearly cost of roller-bearing accidents is an even $30M per year. I think you'll agree that's a conservative cost estimate.If you can invent a sensor that will catch 80% of all the hot boxes that currently slip by the wayside detectors and cause accidents, and if you put 8 of these on each of the 1 million or so freight cars in regular use, you could prevent $24M in damages per year, or $3 per sensor per year. If the sensor has a 20 year design life, then the total life cycle cost of your sensor including manufacture, installation, calibration, inspection, testing, and maintenance, can be a total of $60 if you want to break even.Note that that isn't even counting the installing a system to provide power and data to each car, that's just the sensor itself.It also doesn't account for the cost of delays due to false positives and sensor malfunctions.
Finally, it doesn't take into account any technological improvements in the wayside sensor system. In the time it takes to develop and deploy on-board sensors, it is likely that the rate of catastrophic bearing failure will fall further due to better wayside detection.
The reason this hasn't happened yet isn't because of a lack of "leadership", it isn't because of the divide between railroads and car owners, etc. It's because private actors don't see any potential for profit.
Dan
Erik_Mag SD60MAC9500 That would be AAR Form MD-11 for roller bearing inspection. You can bet the NTSB is collecting all that data. I would be surprised if there is enouh left of the bearing to determine a root cause for the failure, so maintenance records would be the best place for finding clues. Part of my interest in bearing performance comes from a brief discussion with a Timken researcher who said that they ere able to extend the life of bearings by a factor of 10 by making better steel. Number 1 change was reducing inclusions as they were largely responsible for the micro cracks associated with metal fatigue. One thought was that the bearing may have been exposed to something that generated inclusions in the bearing steel, e.g. hydrogen. As for continuous monitoring of the bearings, one of the early warning signs is high frequency (100 - 300 kHz) acoustic emissions from the bearing which results from disclocations in the steel's crystal structure in the process of the metal deforming. I would think the background noise of the wheel rolling on rail would be quite a challenge. OTOH, I wonder if it would be possible to develop a wayside detector that listened for the signs of a failing bearing.
Yes Jeff and Erik TADS(Trackside Acosutic Detector System)are in operation. Yet they are few and far between. It's also the case here with NS 32N and the preceding railroad that the cars traveled on no TADS was installed.
The acoustics argument has came up quite often with this derailment. Yet is of little consequence since no TADS were installed on any of the routes these cars travelled on. However a bad bearing doesn't necessarily emit noise all the time either.
Erik_MagI would be surprised if there is enough left of the bearing to determine a root cause for the failure,
What didn't melt probably disintegrated and is spread out along the ROW. Unless someone actively searched the ballast for some distance before the point of derailment, those parts will just sit there and rust.
tree68 Erik_Mag I would be surprised if there is enough left of the bearing to determine a root cause for the failure, What didn't melt probably disintegrated and is spread out along the ROW. Unless someone actively searched the ballast for some distance before the point of derailment, those parts will just sit there and rust.
Erik_Mag I would be surprised if there is enough left of the bearing to determine a root cause for the failure,
I feature both NS and NTSB have walked the tracks from the IPOD to Salem looking for evidence. How well they did will be stated in the Final Report.
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