Euclid BaltACD Euc - Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts. The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers.
BaltACD Euc - Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts. The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers.
Euc -
Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts.
The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers.
Ever play chess? Ever have an opponent make a move that causes you to have to re-think your entire strategy?
One failure will tie up your entire automated railroad. Dispatchers can work around that. A computer may not be able to do so.
Dispatching is one of those disciplines where you definitely need to walk a mile in their shoes.
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 Euclid BaltACD Euc - Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts. The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers. Ever play chess? Ever have an opponent make a move that causes you to have to re-think your entire strategy? One failure will tie up your entire automated railroad. Dispatchers can work around that. A computer may not be able to do so. Dispatching is one of those disciplines where you definitely need to walk a mile in their shoes.
I'm sure the railroads feel that the dispatching can also be automated to the point that they only need a few people to oversee the computer as it runs the whole show. Movement Planner, Computer Aided Dispatching etc. are out there and in use.
A couple for Movement Planner used by NS. One's an NS video, the other a GE/Wabtec video.
First, the NS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5IYUjAiLek
Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q
Jeff
How does MOVEMANT PLANNER handle AMTRAK on NS? Does Amtrak get priority in that system? Does not seem like it.
How does MOVEMENT PLANNER handle AMTRAK on NS? Does Amtrak get priority in that system? Does not seem like it.
jeffhergertThen the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it.
Interesting - and I'm no expert on signals...
Electroliner 1935Does Amtrak get priority in that system?
As with any algorithm, you could assign any priority to Amtrak trains, with very complex sets of potential conditions -- for example, giving them high right-of-way priority in scheduling when nearly on time, but delaying them when 'out of window'.
One of the hardest things for system dispatching to handle, historically, was accommodation of multiple-speed traffic where "absolute passenger priority" no longer made sense. It is not 'that' great an exercise for a computer system to path 79mph service into lower-speed operations, provided the 79mph path and window can be predicted reasonably well in advance. The problem gets much more interesting if Amtrak starts insisting on being able to run 79mph without interruption at whatever time it enters a particular lane -- still theoretically possible, but NOT if you're using some primitive system of block signaling controlled by written train orders to determine optimal movement.
The situation gets much, much more amenable to Amtrak with properly-implemented PSR, as the necessary adjustments to keep the 79mph transit clear involve relatively little change to the level of slack inherent in most "convenient" freight operation at least-cost kinetics. However, very few people in the industry will want this to become too well known, lest the excuse for keeping Amtrak in the hole for hours become too overtly mendacious.
It is like a chess game now, where one failure can tie up the whole railroad. But that does not mean it has to be that way forever without changing. If an automatic system suffers one little failure and ties up the whole railroad, that system has to be changed until it works as well as needed. But what I am hearing is that there is some fundamental reason why this cannot move forward; and that everything that is manual has to stay that way. It sounds like a system that actually does not want to change.
Sure this will be complicated and costly. I don’t have a blueprint, but I can see a process of pieces coming together. That process has actually begun and is under way. There is no question as to whether it can be done. It is unstoppable because of all the motivation behind it. Eventually this process will automate many different actions, and each one will open up new opportunities within other ones. But I agree that when looking at it through the lens of today’s complex, labor intensive, manually controlled mass of interdependent variables, always on the verge of gridlock, makes it seem like there can be no way to improve it. Every little improvement comes up against a million reasons why it can’t be done. It is time to look at the big picture with an open mind.
This thread is about automatic trains, but they will not arrive in a vacuum and thus face endless insurmountable obstacles of trying to fit into today’s railroad practice. Instead, they will arrive in a gradual process in which the entire practice changes along with the advent of automatic trains. It will end up being an automatic railroad that blends computer dispatching, positive train control, and automatic trainsets into a giant vending machine of transportation.
Euclid tree68 Euclid BaltACD Euc - Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts. The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers. Ever play chess? Ever have an opponent make a move that causes you to have to re-think your entire strategy? One failure will tie up your entire automated railroad. Dispatchers can work around that. A computer may not be able to do so. Dispatching is one of those disciplines where you definitely need to walk a mile in their shoes. It is like a chess game now, where one failure can tie up the whole railroad. But that does not mean it has to be that way forever without changing. If an automatic system suffers one little failure and ties up the whole railroad, that system has to be changed until it works as well as needed. But what I am hearing is that there is some fundamental reason why this cannot move forward; and that everything that is manual has to stay that way. It sounds like a system that actually does not want to change. Sure this will be complicated and costly. I don’t have a blueprint, but I can see a process of pieces coming together. That process has actually begun and is under way. There is no question as to whether it can be done. It is unstoppable because of all the motivation behind it. Eventually this process will automate many different actions, and each one will open up new opportunities within other ones. But I agree that when looking at it through the lens of today’s complex, labor intensive, manually controlled mass of interdependent variables, always on the verge of gridlock, makes it seem like there can be no way to improve it. Every little improvement comes up against a million reasons why it can’t be done. It is time to look at the big picture with an open mind. This thread is about automatic trains, but they will not arrive in a vacuum and thus face endless insurmountable obstacles of trying to fit into today’s railroad practice. Instead, they will arrive in a gradual process in which the entire practice changes along with the advent of automatic trains. It will end up being an automatic railroad that blends computer dispatching, positive train control, and automatic trainsets into a giant vending machine of transportation.
Each iteration of CADS that CSX has installed since the Jacksonville Operations Center was created in 1987 has contained software for 'Automatic' operation of the territories.
More Dispatchers have been terminated because they let 'Automatic' lock their territory down. I have no idea how much effort either CSX or USS are using to make 'Automatic' to be workable software application. As of the time of my retirement 'Automatic' was just a trap for the unwary dispatcher.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDI have no idea how much effort either CSX or USS are using to make 'Automatic' to be workable software application.
As long as it is a deterministic, single chain-of-command system, it will be unworkable. No matter how fast its processors operate, no matter how many interlocking algorithms it's running, no matter how clever its genetic machine learning might be made.
And it will fail for reasons BaltACD can enumerate in his sleep.
BaltACD Euclid tree68 Euclid BaltACD Euc - Train Dispatcher for a livng for a period of time and find out the error of your thoughts. The kind of railroad I am talking about doesn’t need dispatchers. Ever play chess? Ever have an opponent make a move that causes you to have to re-think your entire strategy? One failure will tie up your entire automated railroad. Dispatchers can work around that. A computer may not be able to do so. Dispatching is one of those disciplines where you definitely need to walk a mile in their shoes. It is like a chess game now, where one failure can tie up the whole railroad. But that does not mean it has to be that way forever without changing. If an automatic system suffers one little failure and ties up the whole railroad, that system has to be changed until it works as well as needed. But what I am hearing is that there is some fundamental reason why this cannot move forward; and that everything that is manual has to stay that way. It sounds like a system that actually does not want to change. Sure this will be complicated and costly. I don’t have a blueprint, but I can see a process of pieces coming together. That process has actually begun and is under way. There is no question as to whether it can be done. It is unstoppable because of all the motivation behind it. Eventually this process will automate many different actions, and each one will open up new opportunities within other ones. But I agree that when looking at it through the lens of today’s complex, labor intensive, manually controlled mass of interdependent variables, always on the verge of gridlock, makes it seem like there can be no way to improve it. Every little improvement comes up against a million reasons why it can’t be done. It is time to look at the big picture with an open mind. This thread is about automatic trains, but they will not arrive in a vacuum and thus face endless insurmountable obstacles of trying to fit into today’s railroad practice. Instead, they will arrive in a gradual process in which the entire practice changes along with the advent of automatic trains. It will end up being an automatic railroad that blends computer dispatching, positive train control, and automatic trainsets into a giant vending machine of transportation. Each iteration of CADS that CSX has installed since the Jacksonville Operations Center was created in 1987 has contained software for 'Automatic' operation of the territories. More Dispatchers have been terminated because they let 'Automatic' lock their territory down. I have no idea how much effort either CSX or USS are using to make 'Automatic' to be workable software application. As of the time of my retirement 'Automatic' was just a trap for the unwary dispatcher.
Look at my quote in red. Automation will arrive as a broad trend in a gradual process. Labor does not want it, but management will and the vendors will make sure it happens because it is hugely in their interest. As I said, if you drop one little bit of automation into this current operating culture, it will be sure to fail; if for no other reason than the fact that nobody in the operating culture wants it to succeed.
Big revolutionary changes are bound to have teething problems. The mistakes made in 1987 will be lessons for how to do it better going forward. Even one thing such as automatic trains, if started now, will be far ahead of what was avaiable when Rio Tinto began its automation.
Overmod BaltACD I have no idea how much effort either CSX or USS are using to make 'Automatic' to be workable software application. As long as it is a deterministic, single chain-of-command system, it will be unworkable. No matter how fast its processors operate, no matter how many interlocking algorithms it's running, no matter how clever its genetic machine learning might be made. And it will fail for reasons BaltACD can enumerate in his sleep.
BaltACD I have no idea how much effort either CSX or USS are using to make 'Automatic' to be workable software application.
Wait and see. The profit motive has a loud voice.
jeffhergertThen the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q
Progress is always change, but change is not always progress.
zardoz jeffhergert Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q Very Christmassy, but not too confidence-building. Progress is always change, but change is not always progress.
jeffhergert Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q
Very Christmassy, but not too confidence-building.
Standard salesman 'pie in the sky'. "We will solve all your problems, even if we don't understand what they are"
I do not believe the technical challenge to automated freight trains is nearly as daunting as the opposition movement contends.
zardoz jeffhergert Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q
jeffhergert
It is extremely poor practice to put a green and a red in the same aspect. It indicates that someone not particularly concerned either with safety or crew well-being is trying to 'overload' the aspect meaning for some route-related purpose, the problem being that the integrity of signaling either block occupancy or permission is essentially destroyed when it's done this way.
I almost always see nothing but combinations of yellow when there is a red in the aspect anywhere, eliminating any possibility of misinterpreting positional 'clear' with permissive 'clear'. That applies whether or not the green is supposed to be flashing (which in NORAC implies a limited clear).
It is usual to see "green and red on the same post" in many places; the ex-Southern line out of Memphis uses two three-color aspects stacked vertically to denote which of the respective tracks at the end of a siding is lined. But these are physically separate heads, not combined in one, and their meaning is unambiguous in that context.
Lithonia Operator zardoz jeffhergert Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q
In my corner of the world, only one light can be lit on a signal head at a time. With both lit up like that, to me, it's either a Stop or a Restricted Proceed indication. It depends if it is an absolute, which I suspect it is, or a permissive (what is often called an "intermediate".) with a number plate.
jeffhergert Lithonia Operator zardoz jeffhergert Then the one from GE. Check out the signal about 36 seconds into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q In my corner of the world, only one light can be lit on a signal head at a time. With both lit up like that, to me, it's either a Stop or a Restricted Proceed indication. It depends if it is an absolute, which I suspect it is, or a permissive (what is often called an "intermediate".) with a number plate. UPRR - General Code of Operating Rules 9.4 - Improperly Displayed Signals or Absent Lights Except as shown in block, cab, and interlocking signal aspects in the special instructions, if a light is absent, a white light is displayed where a colored or lunar light should be, or additional colored or lunar lights are displayed, regard a block or interlocking signal as displaying the most restrictive indication it can give. However, when the semaphore arm position is plainly seen, that aspect will govern. Jeff
Maybe GE/NS are trying to economize on the number of signal heads they install in their system and have a single head with multiple light positions display the required colors on each lamp position of the single head.
Here is an article expressing the labor position of opposing automatic freight trains on the basis of safety. He does also cite job loss as a reason to oppose automation. I would not conclude that this type of automation is entirely without risk, but this author seems to believe that any degree of risk means that automation development must stop.
https://www.railwayage.com/cs/push-the-envelope-with-autonomous-freight-trains/
One-person crews will be partly implemented as an intermediate stage leading to automatic trains. Both changes are desired by management, but opposed by labor due to the fact that they eliminate jobs.
However, the debate over both one-person crews and automatic trains will not be argued on the basis of job reduction, but rather on the bases of safety because safety carries more weight with public opinion, and that is what most influences the regulators.
With one-person crews, the safety argument will favor labor on the basis that two sets of eyes in the cab are safer than one set. But with automatic trains, the safety argument will favor management on the basis that the issue of fatigue and operator error will be entirely eliminated.
One primary advantage of automatic trains is that they can be implemented gradually starting with specially selected areas having the least complications.
In addition to management’s desire to advance automatic freight trains, there is also the lobbying force of the manufacturers and suppliers of equipment and technical expertise. This force has a tremendous financial interest and influence on the implementation of automatic trains.
The current trend of increasing freight train length to unprecedented levels (monster trains) is being driven only by saving crew costs by moving more tonnage with the same size crew. Just like their opposition to one person crews and automatic trains, Labor opposes this longer train trend because it causes a reduction of jobs.
However, although Management favors this trend for its reduction of crew costs, they recognize some of its disadvantages such as the greater time and space necessary for handling these ultra-long monster trains in yard/terminal trackage, longer delays resulting from break downs, and risks of damage or derailments due to higher in-train forces.
Labor opposes the longer trains due to their greater chance of derailments caused by the greater in-train forces which poses a risk to public safety and crew safety. Labor opposition avoids the issue of job reduction resulting from these ultra-long trains for the same reason they do not debate that issue with the dispute over one-person crews and automatic trains.
Automatic trains will cancel the one advantage (labor saving) of monster trains because automatic trains require no crews. Then as trains get shorter, their disadvantages such as delays and derailments are reduced. Thus, for maximum railroad fluidity, there will be a shift from monster trains to shorter trains running more frequently on closer headway.
This opens the door to a truly new and revolutionary operating system in which PTC is blended into the automatic train technology, enabling short trains to operate fast and at close intervals.
Then, the shorter trains in constant use may evolve away from loose-car railroading and toward smaller, articulated trainsets. Upon reaching that point, ECP braking may be implemented on a per-train basis where it can provide performance advantage to one train without the need to convert the entire U.S. fleet of rolling stock to ECP brakes in a short time. So then ECP could be implemented incrementally just like automatic trains.
What 'management' wants is a 1 button operation. Press the button and it prints money, without any human intervention at ANY level. This applies to all forms of 'production, transportation, distribution'.
If anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time (Gumperson's Law).
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-model-3-autopilot-crash-police-car/
Did anyone determine if the signal in the GE video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieO29AmZ32Q) previously posted on this forum was an actual signal or an artistic liberty. I have never seen that aspect in any rule books I've seen and if valid, what is it's use and meaning?
BaltACD What 'management' wants is a 1 button operation. Press the button and it prints money, without any human intervention at ANY level. This applies to all forms of 'production, transportation, distribution'.
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