Paul_D_North_Jr BaltACD, thanks much for sharing that ! Very informative. - Paul North.
BaltACD, thanks much for sharing that ! Very informative.
- Paul North.
I second that! Very informative.
I don't know whether the perceived benefits of PTC will justify the costs. Many if not most of the government mandated safety policies, procedures, and practices for the airlines have resulted in a safer system than might otherwise have been the case.
If the airlines and railroads are to be positively controlled, the nation should apply the same standards to truckers, barge operators, etc. If I remember correctly, truckers are responsible for more than 5,000 fatalities a year.
PTC for truckers. Now that would keep the programmers and equipment manufactures employed for at least a couple of weeks. Don't you think?
Sam1 PTC for truckers. Now that would keep the programmers and equipment manufactures employed for at least a couple of weeks. Don't you think?
The trucking companies can already keep track of a lot of what's going on with their trucks via satellite. Where they are, how fast they are going, vehicle performance,etc.
A mechanic in a name-brand Diesel shop once told that they were on the phone with the fleet manager about a problem with a truck that had been brought in. They started the truck sans key while on the phone and the fleet manager immediately wanted to know who had started "his" truck...
A speed overlay would be virtually impossible to maintain since so many agencies would have to collaborate in gathering the information and keeping it up to date (construction zones set up for a few hours, f'rinstance). Add to that the granularity needed in some areas (ie, service roads paralleling Interstate highways - two different speeds) and the whole thing becomes even more problematic.
We won't even discuss including traffic control devices. Integrating them would be a nightmare.
On the other hand, another common problem for trucks is low clearances, which overlay would be a lot easier to create and maintain. Some states are already doing that, albeit in paper form or on their transportation department web pages.
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...
Ridicule the PTC mandate as you wish, but without the government mandate of the ASA in the 1890's, maybe freight railroads would still lack automatic couplers and Westinghouse brakes? The rails adopted the brake system quickly on passenger trains, but 20 years later, had done nothing, until the mandate. Would you enjoy those work conditions?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Ridicule the PTC mandate as you wish, but without the government mandate of the ASA in the 1890's, maybe freight railroads would still lack automatic couplers and Westinghouse brakes? The rails adopted the brake system quickly on passenger trains, but 20 years later, had done nothing, until the mandate. Would you enjoy those work conditions?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
oltmanndSo, why didn't the RRs fight against it harder? I have a couple of thoughts. What are yours?
Since you asked, Don:
I know nothing about PTC costs or technology. However, I have spent some time studying the politics of the budgetary process. That could explain the unwillingness of railroad managers to publically oppose PTC. In American where many people are inclined to make instant judgments with little or no knowledge it could sound like opposition to PTC is opposition to safety. There are costs to making politically incorrect statements and that fact theat the statements are true does not reduce the costs. So railroad managers might be reluctant to speak out for that reason. After all, there is no dishonesty in simply no addressing an issue.
I would like to know what you think of my idea.
John
Murphy SidingRidicule the opinions and logic of others as you wish, but was the mandate for ASA as big an unknown as PTC, and proportionaly as big of an added expense as PTC?
Murphy: I don't know the figures on that, but the objections raised, especially for air brakes were that the equipment was expensive at the time and they had to re-equip 100's of thousands of rail cars and locomotives. Also it was hard to mix re-equipped and non-equipped cars in the same train. So even though the brake was available for 20 years, the rails stalled.
As I see it, the resistance to airbrakes was mostly a cost issue- the railroads didn't want to spend the money. PTC looks to have two major hurdles- cost and implementaion. The railroads of way back when just didn't feel they needed to spend the money on airbrakes. In essence, employee safety wasn't high on their priority list. It seems like the railroads of today (and/or their investor wonders) seem to be asking if the benefits warrant the costs. A theme that keeps popping up is the implementaion. It's the big What if? . What if the politicians, in trying to make themselves look good to the public, mandate railroads spending huge sums of capital on a system that might not even work? Would the same politicians admit they made a mistake, or simply require more systems and more (of someone else's) money be spent to fix the fix?
Cab signals seem to be a pretty solid technology.
GPS is a very solid technology. A farm tractor being steered by GPS can lay down more even rows than a farmer can do without it. If a farmer can afford it on his tractor, a railroad can certainly afford it on his locomotive.
Every single freight car has an RFID transponder on it giving its identification each time it passes a detector. Reverse the detector, put the receiver on the locomotive and the transponder on the signal masts so that it transmits the aspect of each signal to the locomotive.
It is all kids' stuff now. And CHEAP too. There is no reason not to embrace it in full.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
As there were over 1 million cars and locomotives to re-equip in a shorter time with compatibility issues as well in 1900, implementation and cost were the objections then, too. The arguments against couplers were the same as PTC now (the air brakes had already been proven on passenger cars for up to 20 years).
schlimm As there were over 1 million cars and locomotives to re-equip in a shorter time with compatibility issues as well in 1900, implementation and cost were the objections then, too. The arguments against couplers were the same as PTC now (the air brakes had already been proven on passenger cars for up to 20 years).
All of the cars (at least those that matter) already have RFID or whatever it is.
Millions of trucks on the roadways have GPS. FARMERS use GPS to plant their crops for pity sake, How many TRACTORS are there?
It is NOW old technology and fairly cheap too. As soon as it is cheaper than an engine crew, I am sure that the railroad will let you know about it.
When adopting automatic brakes couplers was the issue, the railroads didn't care about the 1000's of yearly accidents with hand and fingers lost to the old link and pin. Cost benefit analysis of the day showed them adoption cost more than the losses in manpower. railroad unions started in the 1860's but were still weak. Wages averaged $1.00 per day and 70 percent of all train crews could expect injury within five years of service. In 1893, over 18,343 railroad workers were injured and 1,657 were killed. One of the first victories for labor was the ASA. Now it seems different. Looks like labor agrees with management, perhaps because they fear job losses more than concerns about safety. Times change!
Management and Union must both be mutually concerned about two things: SAFETY, and PERFORMANCE.
They should be attending weekly or monthly meetings TOGETHER to keep the railroad the best it can be. LION has never understood the adversarial relationship between labor and management, but him does know that it goes back 3000 years, and so does not expect wonderful things of the relationship.
Workers wants emolument, and Management wants performance. It's a match made in Altoona.
BroadwayLion Every single freight car has an RFID transponder on it giving its identification each time it passes a detector. Reverse the detector, put the receiver on the locomotive and the transponder on the signal masts so that it transmits the aspect of each signal to the locomotive.
Signal aspect is but one tiny part of PTC, as I understand it. What makes PTC PTC, instead of one of the myraid other methods of controlling train movement, is the two-way communication between the locomotive and the infrastructure - which includes not only signals, but permanent and temporary speed restrictions, work limits, crossings, what-have-you.
Because the overlay, as it's called, has all of that information and is constantly relating the location of the train with the territory, it can be predictive. RFID transponders on signal masts cannot.
Using two-way communication also means that the entire profile of the railroad doesn't have to be loaded on the locomotive - it's being fed real-time.
Yes. LIONS are full of ideas. Some are just no darn good. But him does not know that until you tell him, and then he will think of a new idea. LION was reacting in part to a post on the Subway Forum where DRN, an engineer for MNCR was holding forth on cab signals and some learned information or track resistances and losses over distances as they affected his cab signals.
So in his post here, LION sought to bypass track impertinences with some other form of communication to the train. If a wayside signal sent so and such a message to the train transponder and if the engineer did not act on it, then the train could try to wake him up, or else begin braking.
LION will let rocket scientists design the system, and the engineers and conductors can find out if it will work for them, in the meanwhile, have you seen this "Train-Plane"?
BroadwayLion Management and Union must both be mutually concerned about two things: SAFETY, and PERFORMANCE. They should be attending weekly or monthly meetings TOGETHER to keep the railroad the best it can be. LION has never understood the adversarial relationship between labor and management, but him does know that it goes back 3000 years, and so does not expect wonderful things of the relationship. Workers wants emolument, and Management wants performance. It's a match made in Altoona. ROAR
On my carrier (and I expect all the other Class 1 carriers) there are monthly and sometimes more frequent safety meetings between senior Division management and representatives of each of the crafts where safety issues are discussed. Many of the items discussed get acted upon.
The adversarial relationship between management & employees stems from Managements bias that all employees are out to screw over the company for additional pay and the employees bias that all management wants to do is 'trap' them in a rule violation so they can be fired. The truth is somewhere in between. Safety is paramount for both (though with the 'outlawing' of many formerly accepted practices), the employees percieve that performance (and their quit) are being sacrificed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
blue streak 1 Was the law vague enough that FRA did not have to issue such draconian REGs ? I have often thought that a modified version of ATS would work almost as well. ATS could be a 4 aspect system: --- Clear, approach , restricting, stop. ? That way the many signal aspects that are displayed on various RR line side signals could be still used. ? As another poster said " GPS " is not the end all. I am worried that if for some reason GPS goes down or cannot provide precise location information. Location requires at least 5 sattelites in view and a prediction that it will be available at destination time ( airline requirement ). If it goes down for any length of time people will die --- probably not RRs if they still have lineside signals.
Was the law vague enough that FRA did not have to issue such draconian REGs ? I have often thought that a modified version of ATS would work almost as well. ATS could be a 4 aspect system: --- Clear, approach , restricting, stop. ? That way the many signal aspects that are displayed on various RR line side signals could be still used. ?
As another poster said " GPS " is not the end all. I am worried that if for some reason GPS goes down or cannot provide precise location information. Location requires at least 5 sattelites in view and a prediction that it will be available at destination time ( airline requirement ). If it goes down for any length of time people will die --- probably not RRs if they still have lineside signals.
With respect to cost/benefit, I believe FRA itself has determined that PTC has a negative cost benefit ratio (although that's off the top of my head). But it doesn't matter, since it's a statutory mandate.
The big question is whether the railroads will be forced to deploy PTC before they have a reliable system. When Congress was considering the PTC, NTSB created the impression that the system was developed and all that was needed was a statutory mandate to force the railroads to deploy it. The fact is that the system mandated by the 2008 legislation did not exist, and still does not exist in a form ready for widespread deployment (there are also issues with whether the radio spectrum needed to support the system will be available). To my mind, the worst thing you can do is to deploy a "safety" system that is not ready for deployment, but that seems to be where we are heading.
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