tree68 That makes absolutely no sense. If you don't involve the Class 1 railroads, where are these autonomous railcars going to travel? Are they going to go from one side of the steel mill to the other? Five miles down the shortline from the gravel pit to the transload facility? Actually, that sounds rather like a good proof of concept. As has been pointed out, the logical place for this is "last mile" applications. Industrial parks being a case in point. However, that will require that the shipper/receiver pairs have sufficient dedicated cars to cover those loading, unloading, and in transit. The Class 1's role would be getting the car from the originating staging point to the delivery staging point, where the autonomous part can be used. And return. A significant majority of railcars in use have no reason to be capable of autonomous operation. They operate in bulk business from end to end. And cars not in dedicated service will be floating around the system with the autonomous equipment just going along for the ride. The idea that an autonomous car is going to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles all by itself is a bit far-fetched...
That makes absolutely no sense. If you don't involve the Class 1 railroads, where are these autonomous railcars going to travel? Are they going to go from one side of the steel mill to the other? Five miles down the shortline from the gravel pit to the transload facility?
Actually, that sounds rather like a good proof of concept.
As has been pointed out, the logical place for this is "last mile" applications. Industrial parks being a case in point. However, that will require that the shipper/receiver pairs have sufficient dedicated cars to cover those loading, unloading, and in transit.
The Class 1's role would be getting the car from the originating staging point to the delivery staging point, where the autonomous part can be used. And return.
A significant majority of railcars in use have no reason to be capable of autonomous operation. They operate in bulk business from end to end. And cars not in dedicated service will be floating around the system with the autonomous equipment just going along for the ride.
The idea that an autonomous car is going to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles all by itself is a bit far-fetched...
Even in the first/last mile service - most people overlook all the switching that is requried to go from an arriving road train to a industrial service job. Lets say our autonomous industrial park has multiple customers handling multiple product lines of both inbound and outbound traffic - loads inbound to be emptied and pulled outbound; empties inbound to be loaded outbound, loads inbound to be unloaded at a particular spot, moved to a different spot and be reloaded for outbound shipment. And if our autonomous industrial park has customers that have multiple tracks with multiple spots and cars at many of those spots that have not completed either loading or unloading and need to remain in place after the new inbound cars are handled.
When I was first transferred to Maryland - I got to work in an industrial park that had about 15 different customers, most could hold 3 or 4 cars on the sidings off a lead that served their buildings. The 'big' customer was a grocery store warehouse that had two tracks inside their building that held 20 cars each. The particular industrial park had yard engine service around the clock. The grocery warehouse got two spotting per day, six days a week. The rest of the customers got daily service. The 1st and 2nd trick jobs did the actul work of spotting and pulling cars from the industries. The 3rd trick job would accumulate all the 'oubound' for the day and drag it to the serving yard 5 miles to the East, where those cars would be dropped and inbound cars for the industrial park would be picked up and moved out to the industrial park for the next days activities. This traffic approximated 100 cars per day each way. Autonomous......
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Conditions there now?
BaltACDEven in the first/last mile service - most people overlook all the switching that is requried to go from an arriving road train to a industrial service job.
Not forgotten - although the factor I thought of was operation of the switches themselves. Either someone has to shadow the autonomous cars to throw the appropriate switches to route the cars where they need to be, or all of the switches have to be remotely controlled by someone/something.
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...
Euclid But the CEO says that penetrating the Class 1 railroad market will be the last frontier, so it might be quite a while before that happens.
But the CEO says that penetrating the Class 1 railroad market will be the last frontier, so it might be quite a while before that happens.
daveklepperConditions there now?
The grocery organization went bankrupt and no longer exists, most of the other industires came to use other means to receive/ship their products and in a number of cases went out of business. When I was last working in 2016, a yard job from another yard in Baltimore would come to the area once or twice a week with a car or two for the remaining customer(s). The industrial park still exists. The grocery warehouse has become a FedEx Terminal. The brewery that was at the termination end of the main customer lead was torn down and the land occupied by a construction materials company.
The land the industrial park occupied was the location of the B&O's 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse. Guaranteed the location will not be used to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the founding of the N&O.
BaltACD daveklepper Conditions there now? The grocery organization went bankrupt and no longer exists, most of the other industires came to use other means to receive/ship their products and in a number of cases went out of business. When I was last working in 2016, a yard job from another yard in Baltimore would come to the area once or twice a week with a car or two for the remaining customer(s). The industrial park still exists. The grocery warehouse has become a FedEx Terminal. The brewery that was at the termination end of the main customer lead was torn down and the land occupied by a construction materials company. The land the industrial park occupied was the location of the B&O's 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse. Guaranteed the location will not be used to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the founding of the N&O.
daveklepper Conditions there now?
Going across Omaha a few trips back, I was looking at all the remnants of business that's no longer there. Some are cases where the track has either been disconnected or entirely pulled up. But there is a lot of cases where the original business is gone. Some facilities have been repurposed, but they won't be able to originate or terminate a full rail car's worth of freight. Some won't even use a full trailer or container's worth.
And that's just what can be seen from the mainline. The old Zone/Track/Spot books show a spider web of industrial leads that are about in the same predicament.
Jeff
How will the autonomous cars know when it is time to move and where to go to within an industrial park?
How will multiple cars coordinate their movements?
Who will handle the switches, derails, warehouse doors, gates, etc.?
These wouldn't be used for just any old destination, would they? Probably certain, very active customers with well suited up to date track situations I would think.
Gramp Probably certain, very active customers with well suited up to date track situations I would think.
Derails, chocks, doors, blue flags, equipment, etc are all present even with active customers. The whole restricted speed thing.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
A few weeks ago my industry had a major warehouse customer celebrating they went to fully automated spotter tractors. The irony of this is that less than a week later all 3 of the unmanned trucks were replaced with manned. Why they forgot about having to open up the doors on the trailers to be able to load and unload them. Plus other things that only a person can do.
Shadow the Cats owner A few weeks ago my industry had a major warehouse customer celebrating they went to fully automated spotter tractors. The irony of this is that less than a week later all 3 of the unmanned trucks were replaced with manned. Why they forgot about having to open up the doors on the trailers to be able to load and unload them. Plus other things that only a person can do.
That's kinda hard to do on a 53 foot trailer that can have different ways to open up some trailers have single locks some have double locks some have interference locks were one goes right the other left on the same door. Those are very common on international containers. Then you have air ride suspensions that needs to be dumped or recharged sliders to move. Just a few little things that need to be worked out. Let alone loads secured inside the trailer.
Euclid Sounds like they need some type of automatic system that won’t forget to open the doors.
What they really need is regular trucks with robots in the driver's seat that can get out and open the doors.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Shadow the Cats ownerThat's kinda hard to do on a 53 foot trailer that can have different ways to open up some trailers have single locks some have double locks some have interference locks were one goes right the other left on the same door. Those are very common on international containers. Then you have air ride suspensions that needs to be dumped or recharged sliders to move. Just a few little things that need to be worked out. Let alone loads secured inside the trailer.
"Once, in the last century, in the Cambria Iron Works at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after working for months to build an unorthodox new machine for steel production, the engineer in charge, John Fritz, said at last, 'All right boys, let’s start it up and see why it doesn’t work.' It is with that very American approach to problems that I think we will find our course. Beware the purists, the doctrinaires. It has been by the empirical method largely, by way of trial and error, that we have come so far. America itself is an experiment and we must bear that always in mind."
McCullough, David. The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For . Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
There was a design flaw in the system. It was discovered. It's a problem to be solved. Big deal. What's needed is a robot that can recognize the type of door to be opened (or closed) and then perform the needed motions to operate the door. That doesn't seem to be too difficult to design and program.
As the quoted author said, we make progress by trial and error. Just fix the error and go on to the next issue.
greyhoundsAs the quoted author said, we make progress by trial and error. Just fix the error and go on to the next issue.
The trial and error methodology is costly, inefficient and often inappropriate in some settings. Ask Boeing!!
charlie hebdo greyhounds As the quoted author said, we make progress by trial and error. Just fix the error and go on to the next issue. The trial and error methodology is costly, inefficient and often inappropriate in some settings. Ask Boeing!!
greyhounds As the quoted author said, we make progress by trial and error. Just fix the error and go on to the next issue.
Think Boeing has forgotton the trial part.
SpaceX Crew Dragon vs. Boeing's Starliner is a better example of time to market
Euclid However, this Intramotev concept surpasses Rio Tinto because it automates coupling and uncoupling.
CSSHEGEWISCH Euclid However, this Intramotev concept surpasses Rio Tinto because it automates coupling and uncoupling. If I recall correctly, this concept does not involve coupling or uncoupling. A string of autonomous cars would operate very closely to each other as a virtual train without any coupling.
How much power would each autonomous car need to go from Rio Tinto's mine areas to their port areas? What kind of 'traffic system' is needed so that the various autonomous cars don't collide with each other - either loaded or empty? How much power does each autonomous car require to go from the port areas back to the mines for loading?
CSSHEGEWISCHf I recall correctly, this concept does not involve coupling or uncoupling. A string of autonomous cars would operate very closely to each other as a virtual train without any coupling.
I believe you're thinking of the Parallel Systems proposal. The Intramotev proposal does involve AAR couplers so it can be used in conventinal train serice when appropriate.
charlie hebdoThe trial and error methodology is costly, inefficient and often inappropriate in some settings. Ask Boeing!!
My thought is this 'Idea" is going to havea long trial and ultimately, be cast aside(?) Not that in today's environment it is not worty of a trial; but the 'headwinds' it is facing are brutal. Transpoortation is a nrutal industry, it feeds on speec, and uniformity. Not,first- off; new, and different ways of accomplishing similar pre-existing tasks.
AUTONOMOUS TRAIN, SOUNDS LIKE A Salesman's delight.... FAST BUCK, and then move on...Nothing left in its' wake but smoke and junk, and the old stady, uniformally, conformal way of moving freight.
Seems like we have the solution, already, it just mneeds some tweeking of what we have already.
greyhoundsIn the cited case the automated yard tractors were tried. They failed. A process design error did not consider the need to open the doors. They can modify their system to recognize various door types and open/close them.
Autonomous 'conventional' yard dogs only make sense when (1) the level 4 autonomous systems are debugged and costed-down, probably with OTR transfer being the development "use case", and (2) some aspect of real-world cost-meaningful autonomous operation becomes difficult or impossible to implement with 'manned' equipment (including dumb RCO equivalent).
One of the basic premises of the Iron Highway and the 'wonder trains' of the early 1980s was that some form of practical sideloading that didn't destroy conventional-construction trailers could be used. That, to use jargon, "didn't eventuate". But one thing that a level 4 autonomous truck can do, and do very well, is steer a path obliquely to get the fifth wheel lined up with the trailer kingpin in one quick pass from the side, then pull it off and 'marshal' it separately, and asynchronously, from other trailer moves off the same train. While with equal facility, trailers are being backed precisely into vacant slots on the same train, again in one quick pass without fribbling, and the tractors detached without needing space in front of the trailer nose. (Think how Flexi-Vans were loaded without the Mickey-Mouse bogies and pushpoles).
Pure autonomous tractors eliminate the need for any structure higher than clearance under the trailer nose. Oddly, the Europeans have built multiple trucks with this characteristic, but not one of them uses it for getting TOFC loaded and unloaded quickly. We have at least one purpose-bulit vehicle that fits entirely under a load... which we use for tiller-steering purposes; the vehicle isn't even powered!
Muitiple-wheel electric drive, multiple-wheel independent steer, low clearance, and you gain the ability to run a full train of trailers on and off a set of underframes in a couple of minutes, including the ability to 'block swap' groups of them to different parts of the same train. Equipment dwell in a terminal or port goes to under 10 minutes. It does not matter which way the noses of trailers are pointing.
I advocate the conversion of trailer brake lines to accommodate some kind of rapid automatic coupling-up to take the spring brakes off without having to gag them -- but that's just a harness and standardized location on the trailer nose, independent of the brake hose connections for normal OTR tractors.
Where the money is to be made is in securing appropriate traffic to justify the specific efficiency improvement capital, and then USING THAT CAPITAL TO IMPROVE ACTUAL OPERATIONS. If you're going to gang-unload the train and then it sits there until the OTR drivers get around to clearing their trailers out of where the automated system parks them, or there is congestion in getting the trailers 'staged' for efficient loading... then the critical path no longer involves the expensive new stuff, with predictable consequences.
greyhoundsTrial and error is the way we move forward in our lives. Even with our medications. Most new products fail in the market. Most new businesses fail in the market. But those that succeed make our lives better. There are two things people don't like. 1) The way things are and, 2) change.
Most progress is made by thorough research. You might want to rethink how medication is developed.
Most people dislike change, as your interesting and amusing tales about resistance to marketing innovation on the IC have shown us over and over. One only needs to look at the railroads and this forum to see "inertia in action!!"
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/ag8KzRTxmRUAvqyr/?mibextid=oFDknk
Poor engineering.
Autonomous railcars appear to be an answer looking for a question.
All progress is change, not all change is progress.
BaltACD Euclid However, this Intramotev concept surpasses Rio Tinto because it automates coupling and uncoupling. How much power would each autonomous car need to go from Rio Tinto's mine areas to their port areas? What kind of 'traffic system' is needed so that the various autonomous cars don't collide with each other - either loaded or empty? How much power does each autonomous car require to go from the port areas back to the mines for loading?
The application of Intramotev autonomous railcars to go into industrial parks to perform daily switching moves for a variety of customers would be the least favorable application. This is because it would require a relatively large investment in automatic switches and other related infrastructure while saving the least amount of labor.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.