Federal money usually has strings attached. The oversight and bureaucracy involved probably isn't worth the money for the class 1's. If the cash strapped commuter agencies and Amtrak haven't dipped for some dough then the terms were probably not that favoable.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Class 1's haven't played the money card. They are playing the imature, untested technology as well as the FCC being dilatory in approving the required radio permits.
The commuter agencies are the one's screaming about costs.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Excerpt from Congressional Research article by David Randall Peterman
http://pennyhill.com/jmsfileseller/docs/R44028.pdf
The Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program offers long-term, low interest loans to railroad operators for improving rail infrastructure. Congress has authorized $35 billion in loan authority for the program, but freight railroads have been relatively unenthusiastic. Since 2000, RRIF has made 34 loans to 26 operators for a total of $2.7 billion, representing $2.9 billion in 2015 dollars. About two-thirds of the nominal loan amount has gone to government controlled entities for passenger rail projects rather than to freight operators. From 2000 through 2014, private railroads’ total investment in structures was approximately $109 billion in 2015 dollars. RRIF supplied less than 1% of freight railroads’ capital expenditures for track and other structures over that period. The program is intended to operate at no cost to the government and does not receive an annual appropriation.
In recent years, sponsors of intercity passenger rail projects have shown increasing interest in the program. Part of this interest may be explained by a growing interest in passenger rail services and the scarcity of other funding assistance for such projects, which tend to be extremely costly. Legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives seeks to shorten the time taken to complete loan application reviews and would specify that 40% of the available loan authority be reserved for improvements to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the most heavily used passenger rail corridor in the nation. The prospect of large loans for private, intercity passenger rail projects raises questions about potential risks to the RRIF program, because such a project may have no source of earnings until and unless it is completed and, even then, may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to service its loans.
The railroad industry has changed significantly since Congress created a forerunner of RRIF in 1976. At that time, the nation’s railroads were in great financial difficulty, investment in infrastructure and equipment had lagged, and there were questions about the future viability of the industry. Subsequently, Congress significantly deregulated the industry, making it easier for carriers to consolidate and to shed less profitable routes. Since that time, mergers have reduced a large number of regional rail companies to a handful (known as Class I carriers).
Deregulation allowed the large railroads to focus their construction and maintenance efforts on heavily trafficked main lines and to stop service on routes that were not profitable. Some of this lightly used trackage was sold to smaller operators, which believed they could build business by working closely with shippers that used or might use the line. These smaller railroads, collectively known as short line railroads, are classified by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) as Class II and Class III carriers. Although there are now only 7 Class I railroads operating in the United States, there are more than 560 short line railroads.
The Class I freight railroads—large, profitable commercial entities—are able to finance improvements out of their considerable revenues, as well as by issuing stock and by borrowing in the commercial market. In 2015, they reportedly plan to spend around $29 billion on their networks.
Class II and Class III railroads have fewer financing options. Their revenues are smaller, their lines of business typically are more limited than those of the Class I railroads, and their creditworthiness generally is lower. However, nearly half of the nation’s short line railroads have come under the control of 27 holding companies, potentially offering them easier access to private financing. In addition, a number of short line railroads are terminal switching, port, or harbor rail lines that have a relationship with a Class I railroad, which may help them obtain financing, and some short line railroads are owned by states. These entities typically have easier access to the financial markets than do stand-alone short line railroads...
Congress created the RRIF program in 1998 and revised it in 2005 and 2008. The program allows the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to provide credit assistance for rail infrastructure by making low-cost direct loans or providing loan guarantees to project sponsors.
Eligible recipients of this assistance include railroads, state and local governments, government sponsored corporations, and joint ventures that include at least one railroad.
The RRIF program replaced a railroad financing program that Congress created in 1976. The original program allowed DOT to provide financial assistance for rail infrastructure by purchasing preference shares or issuing loan guarantees. The authorization to purchase preference shares expired in 1996.
In the 1998 revision that renamed the program, Congress authorized DOT to make direct loans as well as loan guarantees, set an overall cap of $3.5 billion on the total amount of outstanding debt that the program could have at any one time, and reserved almost 30% of that ($1 billion) for projects benefiting short line railroads. In 2005, Congress increased the limit on outstanding debt to $35 billion and increased the amount reserved for smaller freight railroads to $7 billion.
The increase was not due to demand for the program—the program had issued a total of less than $1 billion in loans at that point—but in hopes of boosting interest in the program.
Projects eligible for RRIF assistance include acquiring, improving, and rehabilitating track, bridges, rail yards, buildings, and shops (or refinancing existing debt that was incurred for these purposes); and developing new rail or intermodal facilities. Loans can be for up to 100% of the project cost, with repayment periods up to 35 years...
The interest rate on RRIF loans is equal to the rate paid by the U.S. Treasury to borrow for a similar period of time as of the date the loan is approved. That is, the recipient is able to borrow money at the lowest rate available, that paid by the federal government itself, and for a longer period of time than most other types of loans would permit. RRIF borrowers can ask to defer loan repayment for a period of six years (though interest accrues during this period). Alternatively, FRA can guarantee a private loan based on a rate DOT determines to be reasonable.
In 1893, Congress passed a law that mandated air brakes, automatic couplers, and other safety improvements on railroads, effective January 1, 1898. All of those things had been around for some time, so it wasn't necessarily new technology, but standardization was a problem, especially for the couplers. They had to choose one type of coupler (from about 1500 competing patents) that would solve all their problems for all railroads, for all the future. That meant they had to be strong enough for long trains, mountainous regions, and slack action appropriate to each, with the new wave of faster, more powerful locomotives pulling them. Moreover, they had to do their job without killing and maiming brakemen.
At that time, approximately 500 to 1000 brakemen were dying each year, with another 6000 wounded or maimed for life, due to the Link & Pin Coupler. We hear about it being dangerous for fingers, but history has swept its lethality under the rug. It was just about as effective as a guillotine if the brakeman lost his footing or wasn't watching the approaching car while preparing to guide the link into its hole, and secure it with the pin. It was a horrible death, and it happened so often that trainmen formed an organization to provide help to widows and orphans. You can see the graphic story told on the posters for the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (BRT) from the 1800s by searching in Google. The Switchmen's Union of North America (SUNA) likewise formed, as did the Order of Railway Conductors. All used the Link & Pin couplers in their imagery and logos early on, though the BRT eventually dropped it, possibly to forget their traumatic early years. SUNA and ORC logos incorporated the Link & Pin Coupler so that they would never forget the carnage, and the reasons for their existence as brotherhoods.
From these organizaitons sprang the major railroad unions that operated separately until they joined together in 1969 to form the United Transportation Union (UTU). I give you all this detail so you will understand that this was not a small issue. Prior to 1900, joining the railroad as a brakeman was like going to war. 1 in 3 brakemen were maimed or killed over their careers from 1840 to 1900. We're talking about thousands of men who were not able to work again. These things weren't just unsafe; they were deadly.
So what happened on January 1, 1898, when the automatic coupler (the Janney Coupler, it was agreed upon) was to be universally installed? The big railroads claimed it would cause them irreperable harm to have to slow down their operations to install these couplers, even though some railroads had already done so without any business decline. Nevertheless, the Railroads got congressional extensions. In the year 1898, when the automatic coupler would have saved so many lives, about 600 brakemen died at their jobs from the Link & Pin coupler. 6000 more were grievously harmed. You can imagine the caseloads for lawyers who dealt in this branch of law. In fact, the law books of that time provide more information on this than any other source except for the union monthly news magazines. If not for those sources, I could not have given you any definitive numbers.
So, you can see that when push comes to shove, Congress caves and gives the railroads what they want. Even in the face of tremenous harm to people who might be protected from such conditions by a firmer mandate. So, expect things to go smoothly to the outside observer, even if lawyers are working overtime.
By the way, if you want to see just how much effort goes into something as seemingly simple as selecting the Janney Coupler from a field of over 1500, for all future railroad cars, read The American Freight Car, pages 490 to 526, and prepare to be astounded.
It's safe to say that Automatic Train Control is more complex than the Janney Coupler, and yet the systems it replaces are nowhere nearly as lethal, with all due respects to those who have lost their lives. Congress is likely to extend the dates by as much as is required. No trains will stop running.
The bigger question is "what happens when they install it all, and the bugs start appearing?" There are going to be tremendous failures. There may be lives lost to problems with the system. At some point, dispatchers and trainmen alike are likely to wish they could go back to the old system. But they WILL get it worked out, and future railroads will have an Automatic Train Control system that effectively runs trains safely, and at some point it will work with or without an engineer. If Congress and attorneys do not kill the railroads before it is up and working, the conversion to this system will be remembered as a watershed much like the conversion from Link & Pin to Janney Couplers. It follows just 117 years after the mandate for more train safety, and while there have been many other such mandates, these are exceptional for their aim at preserving life on an industry-wide scale. It's the Centennial Safety Update!
Shooshie
Anyone know what computer operating system will be doing the 'thinking' in pulling PTC together in the real world. Windows 95, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10. A Mac operating system for Apple. Some other operating system? How easy will the system be for a hacker to hack and cause catastrophic incidents?
We live in a world where faceless cadres of people want to wreck the tools others depend upon to do productive functions. How well will PTC respond, considering all the elements of technology that are being incorporated into what is required to make the entire system WORK, in as much as each of the technological elements have their own failure modes.
Balt, well put!
By the way, do you have to set the type color every time you post? I have to set font and size every time.
Johnny
Great article! Thanks so much for posting that. I don't have it, or didn't until now, and I really need it! That was the article (possibly a speech?) by Henry Cabot Lodge which generated enough traction to cause the passage of the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893. Like the Positive Train Control mandate, it was a watershed event for railroad safety.
There is definitely an analogy between the PTC mandate and the coupler/air brake mandate, but I wonder about the proportionality. How does the rate of death and injury compare between the dangers addressed in the two mandates? How does the mandate cost compare in equal terms of current dollars for the two eras?
I don't think you can directly compare the rate of death and injury between the two. The Link & Pin coupler and the rooftop handbrake were death traps. Railroads were created in a virtual eyeblink, and turned out to be the instrument that would create a nation across a continent, taming distance, time and weather, while creating or making possible industries that could not have existed without them. Railroading was the cutting edge of technology, and would be for a hundred years, but it had happened so fast that it did not have time to evolve as a safe technology. By the time they realized they had a problem, it was too big to tame without drastic measures and unnatural levels of cooperation. It took a congressional mandate to fix the problem unilaterally across all states and all railroads.
Positive Train Control, on the other hand, has been evolving for 100+ years. There have been various attempts at it, some pretty successful, since the early 1900s. The traffic patterns and types of trains have changed faster than the technology has evolved, always leaving it back where it started. Railroad administrations tend to want to ignore it in hopes that it will go away. Most railroaders agree that they'd rather run the train themselves, and feel far safer doing so without a mechanical or computerized overseer. But the problem isn't those people. It's the one guy who puts his feet up on the console, pulls his hat down over his RayBans, and tunes out reality.
As a brakeman I worked with a few engineers who would neglect to whistle at crossings, overshoot the speed limit by quite a lot, and gamble that they could make it to the next town before another train heading toward them. Usually they were right; they weren't stupid. But it only takes that one time when they don't have all the facts, or they make a mistake... then PTC would have saved lives. Everyone else has to suffer for the unpredictability of a few.
The one area where you CAN compare the couplers/brakes and PTC is the Congressional mandate for public safety. Even when it was a severe, acute, and ongoing problem, Congress gave the RR's extensions. They probably will now, too. Especially since the technology is unproven and there hasn't been time to implement it slowly and carefully.
Anyway, it took government to move the industry, once again, but ultimately the next phase of railroading will develop from this.
I think you've got to factor media into the mix. Without today's instant, world-wide news coverage, Chatsworth would have simply been another railroad accident relegated to page 7 (on the east coast). While the deaths of brakemen were likely local news, outside of that locale it was probably a non-item.
Nowadays, with that instant communication, as well as the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality, people all over the country can be outraged at the same time.
I don't think anyone (outside perhaps the beancounters) thinks PTC is a bad thing. As always, though, the devil is in the details...
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...
Another difference is that with the coupler/airbrake mandate, the objective was clear even if the exact method was not, at least in the beginning. But with the PTC mandate, I gather that neither the method nor the objective have been completely defined.
EuclidAnother difference is that with the coupler/airbrake mandate, the objective was clear even if the exact method was not, at least in the beginning. But with the PTC mandate, I gather that neither the method nor the objective have been completely defined.
Well said. I think the real objective is hidden from view. Like the Google and the Apple self-driving car, PTC may have implications far beyond the obvious. The railroads have been trying to get crews down to 1 person — which I think is a bad idea, having been a railroader and knowing plenty of reasons why you need 2 or more people — but I think they would really like to get it down to 0 crew. Imagine mainline operations like the Santa Fe from LA to Chicago pulling mega-tonnage without any concern for crew changes, shift limits, or any other crew hassles. Basically a big Lionel Train with a dispatcher somewhere in the middle, with trains diving into sidings, racing over El Cajon, and delivering the goods without a human being touching the train from origin to destination.
Far fetched? In one step, it would be far fetched. But PTC is the first step of many. Eventually there would be no need for a crew member on the actual train.
You say PTC is the "gateway to automation" "crewless trains" etc. But PTC is hardly some technological breakthrough. Variations on these sorts of systems have been used elsewhere for years, but no crewless trains there so far. Frankly, your speculation is the worst sort: possible, sure, but with a low probability, because mostly it is conjecture without much factual grounding.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I don’t see the fact that PTC has been around for some time without leading to automation as being good evidence that it can’t lead to automation. Development takes time. Obviously PTC with this mandate will not be the PTC that has been around for a long time. For one thing PTC has never been as universal as it will be under this mandate. A change as big as automatic running will be greatly expedited by the sudden expansion of PTC under the mandate.
They've been working on automatic train control for a long time, but ALL the early attempts were mechanical or electro-mechanical. There were no Aritificial Intelligence processors of any sort back then. The best they could do was to see that one of the upcoming blocks was occupied, and slow or stop the train appropriately. There were variations, of course, but they were not capable of anything like digital logic.
We already have empty engines switching yards, by remote control. It's just not a very large leap from there to trains controlled by dispatchers or remote engineers, or even automomous control like that of Google's cars. (Apple is working on one, too.)
There is irresponsible speculation, such as "railroads will bring back steam, because it can outperform diesel with modern improvements." One can't disprove it, but it's very unlikely. But some speculation is more like observation, where you observe the slope of the land and deduce that boulders will be rolling downhill. Things are just moving in that direction, and the technology is being developed in parallel in other fields. (automatic airplanes, cars, boats, drones...) I'd be very surprised if someone doesn't test the first autonomous, automatic railroad drone in at least some of our lifetimes. Of course, that's not the purpose of the PTC mandate. PTC has enough problems just getting it to work as desired, protecting people from train crashes. Once it does, though, you don't really think they're going to stop working on it, do you?
The German PTC, called LZB (Linienzugbeeinflussung = linear train control) was developed in the 1960s by Siemens and has been widely depoloyed with upgrades starting in the 1980s. It is advanced for controlling HSR. DB does not operate crewless trains. though generally single operating crew (driver). Inclusion of relevant similar experiences is the basis for prediction as oppose to rampant speculation.
Excerpt from Broadcasting Its New Day by Samuel L. Rothafel and Raymond Francis Yates (1925)
A few years ago Nikola Tesla, to whom the world owes much for his daring experiments and practical development of electrical inventions, made the statement that within twenty-five years we would be sending crewless ships guided by radio to every port in Europe. The prophecy was not taken seriously by many, but before ten years had passed a ponderous mass of steel weighing many thousands of tons had been given a sense of direction by the impulses of radio. The writers refer to the old battle-ship Iowa, which was rigged up with the Hammond radio control system. Without a man on board, the proud old ship, once the navy's pride, was guided over the waters of Delaware Bay. The steam entering the engines was under the control of a radio-operated throttle. The propellers and even the liquid fuel flowing to the flames beneath the boilers were obedient to the will of distant operators.
Tesla has lived to see the world well on the way to the realization of his dream. The experiments with the Iowa were wonderfully successful, and, if many thousand tons of lifeless steel can be given a sense of direction, surely there must be many other things in the world that could be easily operated by radio. It almost seems that the world will soon be regulated and controlled by ethereal impulses.
It may be difficult for the layman to understand just how a great mass of steel can be placed under such perfect control. He will probably be surprised to know that the control is maintained by comparatively simple devices.
When the earlier attempts were made at controlling mechanisms over distances, radio engineers had little to work with in the way of reliable equipment. Transmitted impulses were weak, and there were no practical means of amplifying them. When the vacuum tube arrived the problem was greatly simplified. A received impulse could be amplified until it became strong enough to cause an appreciable effect when it passed into the proper kind of an instrument. When perfect amplification became possible, the rest was comparatively easy. Weak impulses could not be relied upon, but now that the engineer had been placed in possession of the vacuum tube, the science of radio-dynamics developed rapidly.
For those who are seriously interested in radio, a brief description of the operation of a modern control system may not come amiss. Most readers are probably familiar with the electrical instrument called the relay. This is a device to enable a weak current of electricity to control a heavier one. A radio relay is like an automatic switch. A radio impulse is very weak even when heavily amplified, and of course it could not be expected to do much work. In the radio relay the current enters a pair of heavy magnets, and it produces just enough magnetism to move a delicately balanced arm or armature. The armature has a contact point arranged at its end, and when the armature is moved even slightly the contact point meets another contact point, and another independent electric circuit, which has a heavy current flowing through it, is closed. This, in turn, may close another heavier relay. Thus the big motors that move a ship may be eventually placed in operation. Of course, the impulses travel through these relays very rapidly. Thus a weak impulse which would not be able to annoy a fly may move even a battle-ship.
It is not difficult to foresee that reaching out into space with the long arm of radio must some day play an important part in our civilization. We have only begun to travel down the road that will eventually lead to the radio era. The dreams of to-day are the realities of to-morrow.
Battle-ships are not the only machines that have been tamed to radio. The airplane as well has been controlled through the ether. During the war intensive research was done on radio-operated air-planes, and strenuous efforts were made to perfect a manless ship of the air that could be flown over German cities. Some success was attained, but it is evident that the airplane cannot be so readily subdued as the more passive battle-ship. Airplanes were made to fly, however, and they were steered and controlled by this means, but the control was not reliable, and a number of years are likely to pass before we have a perfectly controlled airship. But come it must, and doubtless we shall have crewless airplanes sent to every port in Europe just as we shall have ships in the sea.
Multitudinous devices lend themselves to long-distance operation by radio, and it is natural to assume that these devices will be the first to be brought under radio control. Light-ships, lighthouses, and light-buoys could be very profitably brought into the radio realm, and there is also the possibility of radio train control, which many inventors have tinkered with. Extremely important development work in this direction has been done in Germany. Radio control is used successfully on the Berlin-Hamburg Railroad; it is not possible for the engineer to pass a stop signal, for a radio mechanism automatically applies the brakes.
Let us imagine a limited train with a string of passenger coaches rushing through the night at a seventy-mile gait. There is the sudden thunder of a terrific impact, a shower of splinters, and the hissing of escaping steam. The engineer has passed a signal. It is not a new story, to be sure, but it is one that has cost many thousands of lives and an appalling amount of property.
Sober thought reveals the importance of reliable and positive train control. The old-fashioned signal system leaves too large a gap for the human element. A mere red light is called upon to stop a train. It is all that stands between a rapidly moving mass of steel and a passenger train following it in the next block. The engineer may be careless; he may be stricken with a sudden illness; he may drop dead. Such things have happened many times. In such a situation the warning light is useless.
Radio engineers for some time have thought that radio might be applied to the problem of train control. The subject has been under experimentation ever since the control of distant mechanisms by radio impulse was first undertaken. Now that battle-ships have been controlled at a distance, why not locomotives, engineers ask.
We may recall a disastrous wreck which overtook the Atlantic City Express not long ago, in which a score of people were killed. The signalman in the tower, though aware of what was going to happen, was powerless to prevent it. He knew that the trains would come together, yet he could do nothing. Had radio train control been perfected, he could have sent forth a signal which could have been picked up by a receiver at the roadside, amplified, and shot into a relay. The relay would have closed a motor circuit, and the motor would have lifted a small arm in the center of the track in front of the advancing train. As the locomotive rushed over the spot the arm would have tripped a device which automatically would have closed the throttle and applied the brakes.
This system is by no means impossible, although radio-dynamic probably has not yet been developed to a point where such a system could be installed and operated with entire reliability. But the system can be operated, and has been. A number of railroads have experimented with it, and a few of them have spent thousands of dollars upon it. That considerable work has been done is proved by the fact that in the patent office there have been filed a number of patents covering systems of this nature. Radio engineers know that the problem can be solved, but the systems they have developed thus far have not been able to meet the need. Any device of this nature would have to be absolutely reliable, since it would be depended on to save lives when called upon for that purpose.
Radio control systems now in operation are simple but not very reliable. Contrary to the general impression, however, the received radio energy does not actually operate the distant mechanisms but only controls them. Just as a detonator cap sets off a charge of dynamite, so do received radio impulses release the local energy which controls the motor that lifts up the train control arm in the center of the railroad track. Suppose that in place of our radio receivers we use a very sensitive relay. A relay is nothing more or less than an automatic switch. When a radio signal arrives, it passes through vacuum tubes, where it is amplified, and thence into the relay. The relay closes, contact is made, and current from a local battery is allowed to flow into a motor. The motor can be so arranged as to do anything that is desired.
Some of the country's best minds are working on the train control problem. It must be realized that a radio control system for trains would have to be dependable under working conditions. If, for instance, the devices were placed alongside the tracks, they would have to be rugged enough to withstand the vibrations of passing trains; they would also have to be insensitive to stray signals and inductive effects that might tend to operate the relays.
If a wireless system were employed it would have to be used in connection with an extensive wire system, since the natural limitations of radio would prevent its application to an entire signal system.
Radio train despatching deserves to be considered in the same connection. As early as 1910, Earl Hanson, who is a well-known radio inventor, was employed by the Sante Fe Railroad to perfect a system of this nature. He rigged up aerials on the cabs of a number of locomotives, and communication was held with the engineers while their trains were in motion. Although encouraging results were obtained, railroad officials are hard to please, and the experiments were abandoned. With present-day radiophone equipment there apparently should not be much of a problem involved in radio train despatching.The engineer could be kept within listening distance of the despatcher all the time.
Numerous attempts have been made to establish direct telephonic communication with locomotive engineers, but the systems used were ineffective. If there is one need to which radio is adapted, however, it is this one. Many an engineer, if he had been given a warning message in time, could have stopped his train and avoided a great disaster. Of course if he had fallen dead, as perhaps in some cases he did, a radio message would have been of no avail, and radio control would have been needed to save the day.
In New York's subways there is a wonderful system of automatic control by wire devices. No more than one train is allowed in a block at one time. If the motorman of a train passes a block signal, the emergency brakes are applied instantly and without his intervention. While this system works beautifully in the subway, where the more delicate parts are protected from contact with varying weather conditions, it could not be depended on to perform the service equally well on an outside track. The time is ripe for some genius to apply radio to the train control problem. A practical solution would mean a saving of many millions of dollars to this country annually.
The last paragraph is not correct. The standard trip-hammer safety control pioneered on the IRT subway of 1904 has been in reliable operation on the New York subway system on elevated tracks, on surface tracks, and tracks in open cuts, as well as in subway tunnels. It could have been applied to North American railroads, but in any case, the PRR came up with a better system in the middle-'20s, and it also could have been applied nation-wide. Just money.
But, of course, nothing is absolutely foolproof.
As opposed to technology, the greater factors for predicting changes in train crew size are the rails' corporate attitudes regarding productivity and their prevailing attitudes about improving profits: revenue expansion vs cost-cutting.
BaltACD Anyone know what computer operating system will be doing the 'thinking' in pulling PTC together in the real world. Windows 95, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10. A Mac operating system for Apple. Some other operating system? How easy will the system be for a hacker to hack and cause catastrophic incidents? We live in a world where faceless cadres of people want to wreck the tools others depend upon to do productive functions. How well will PTC respond, considering all the elements of technology that are being incorporated into what is required to make the entire system WORK, in as much as each of the technological elements have their own failure modes.
I would be interested to know as well....
I strongly suspect that the various PTC platforms use Linux as a lot of industrial and governmental users have migrated to that operating system in recent years. For instance the U.S Department of Defense is converting exclusively to a Linux derived O.S.
There are supposedly security advantages (which is not to suggest that Linux is hack proof) and; because the system is Open-source based, one is not beholden to the Microsoft empire when using it. Apple O.S's have never had a lot of industrial applications although there are major exceptions:Audio/Video production platforms and Graphic art systems were Apple dominated for a long time.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
EuclidI think PTC is the portal to automation because it provides one of the most important elements of automation, that is, the ability to replace the human decision making process. To that extent, it is automation.
In a limited sense. What PTC does is take action if the crew exceeds a boundry condition. It is a very complicated limit switch. PTC is all about stop and nothing about GO. PTC doesn't determine how fast a train should be going, it doesn't start a train, it doesn't slow a train. What PTC does is keep a train from exceeding a limit, but PTC itself has no way of controlling a train to approach but not exceed the limit. If the speed limit is 60 mph, PTC has no functionality to keep the train operating at 59 mph, it just keeps the train from exceeding 60. Its not cruise control. PTC does nothing to optimize the train handling or fuel economy.
There are lots of other systems out there, some in use by individual railroads, that adress the GO part of running a train, but PTC is not one of them.
BaltACDAnyone know what computer operating system will be doing the 'thinking' in pulling PTC together in the real world.
I would suspect that the core of PTC will reside on an "industrial" platform - Unix is probably a likely suspect, although I wouldn't rule out others.
I would expect that "client" users will use current "consumer" software - Windows and Mac. Likewise, the data will probably use current protocols and software, with a strong possibility of encryption.
Virtually any system can be hacked - a lot has to do with how it's protected at the edges. And that will depend on how much information those not directly connected to the system want to have access to.
I agree on the hackers. It's a shame that some clown in Lower Slobbovia with nothing better to do could potentially shut down a rail line...
dehusman Euclid I think PTC is the portal to automation because it provides one of the most important elements of automation, that is, the ability to replace the human decision making process. To that extent, it is automation. In a limited sense. What PTC does is take action if the crew exceeds a boundry condition. It is a very complicated limit switch. PTC is all about stop and nothing about GO. PTC doesn't determine how fast a train should be going, it doesn't start a train, it doesn't slow a train. What PTC does is keep a train from exceeding a limit, but PTC itself has no way of controlling a train to approach but not exceed the limit. If the speed limit is 60 mph, PTC has no functionality to keep the train operating at 59 mph, it just keeps the train from exceeding 60. Its not cruise control. PTC does nothing to optimize the train handling or fuel economy. There are lots of other systems out there, some in use by individual railroads, that adress the GO part of running a train, but PTC is not one of them.
Euclid I think PTC is the portal to automation because it provides one of the most important elements of automation, that is, the ability to replace the human decision making process. To that extent, it is automation.
As I have mentioned, I believe that the implementation of PTC will be a continual work in process to apply technology to railroading. Certainly automation will be an inevitable objective of this technological work in progress.
The real test of a visionary is to lead others to the vision and not be blocked by the icy waters of dogmatic thinking. Those who must see evidence of something's existence before it exists, in order to be convinced of its inevitability, serve as distractions from the vision. I doubt that Elon Musk wasted a lot of time convincing critics that PayPal would transform internet commerce, or that the Tesla would revitalize American auto manufacturing, or that a software designer with a vision for electric cars could also lead industry into outer space.
If anyone needs evidence of trains run by automation, they might take a look at airport shuttle trains all over the world, which have been pioneering such systems for the past 40 years. Evolving automation from such a controlled environment to the blithering unpredictability of the wild will continue to be a slow process, aided by periodic revolutionary advancements in computer sensing, decision making, and failsafe implementation.
I'm not thrilled by it. As a railfan, I'd love to see crews and cabooses brought back to the glory days of railroading, but with modern safety and conveniences, full pay and benefits! Now, that's just dreaming!
schlimm, but no crewless trains there so far.
From Wikipedia
"The Muskingum Electric Railroad was a private coal-carrying railroad owned by American Electric Power, and started operation in 1968. MERR shuttled coal in two trains from the mine to a powerplant at Relief, Ohio (across from Beverly, OH), a distance of 20 miles. The trains were driverless and powered by automated General Electric E50C's."
Experiments were done 50 years ago on self-guided cars, using a wire laid in the pavement and sensors on the front bumper of the car. In theory, one could get on a limited access highway, set the machine, and crawl in the back seat for a nap. Memory doesn't serve me on the details, but I have to believe that speed could probably be transmitted by the wire.
Of course, such a system still requires the alert eye of someone in the car to react to unknown/unplanned circumstances, and that's not to say that an overly ambitious driver couldn't buzz along well over the speed limit, altering traffic flow.
tree68 Of course, such a system still requires the alert eye of someone in the car to react to unknown/unplanned circumstances, and that's not to say that an overly ambitious driver couldn't buzz along well over the speed limit, altering traffic flow.
I suspect a "driverless" train would still have someone on board to handle emergencies i.e. hitting cars at grade crossings etc. This person would simply observe and not operate unless something unexpected happened.
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