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Or they could have implemented automatic train control that the old CN&W used. It enforced compliance. Simple and effective and would prevent several accidents.
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Nov 27, 2013 05:51
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I doubt they have considered adopting something like ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) which at its most basic is an overlay system and won't need the horrendous amount of transmitters; even the more advanced versions don't need a radio tower ever 2 odd miles. Disgruntled Bovine posted:
The most basic systems use on board computers and track based transponders placed at critical locations to determine the response required. This is basically RFID so there isn't really any information broadcast so to speak. Otherwise more advanced systems communicate to the system using data across radio. The train provides the system its speed and position. The positional information is provided by GPS / Transponders and encoders to measure distance travelled. If someone was able to pick this information up externally they would need to be able to extract the information before it would be usable.
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Nov 27, 2013 06:51
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BrokenKnucklez posted:2 man crew could have properly secured the train? It serves as a checks and balance. Still would have been out of hours on a siding. I don't know the timeline for the incident but maybe you do. You know what would be really good for safety? Taking the seats out of cabs. Its pretty hard to fall asleep standing up.
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Nov 27, 2013 08:47
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:You know what would be really good for safety? Taking the seats out of cabs. Its pretty hard to fall asleep standing up. Better than that, just go ahead and install a vigilance system that zaps them with a few hundred volts if they don't respond to the warning within 2 seconds
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Nov 27, 2013 15:52
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They couldn't do that with some kind of satellite system?
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Nov 27, 2013 16:16
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Hyperriker posted:Better than that, just go ahead and install a vigilance system that zaps them with a few hundred volts if they don't respond to the warning within 2 seconds I was thinking that might be a good alternative. Shock collars already exist.
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Nov 27, 2013 16:19
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EightBit posted:They couldn't do that with some kind of satellite system? Guessing it'd be too prone to weather and other interference (tunnels) to be reliable enough to be used as a safety system
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Nov 27, 2013 16:22
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Hyperriker posted:Guessing it'd be too prone to weather and other interference (tunnels) to be reliable enough to be used as a safety system Current RCO units use them. Guess how good they are?
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Nov 27, 2013 16:47
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Hyperriker posted:Better than that, just go ahead and install a vigilance system that zaps them with a few hundred volts if they don't respond to the warning within 2 seconds Just defer maintenance on the alerters for a while until the appropriate shorts develop. 
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Nov 27, 2013 17:13
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Current RCO units use them. Guess how good they are? I don't want to know. At all. I'll just give it the signals and pray
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Nov 27, 2013 17:22
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Nov 29, 2013 14:13
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Well, I see BroJo and Grover are getting along famously. 
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Nov 30, 2013 00:12
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madeintaipei posted:Well, I see BroJo and Grover are getting along famously. Someone's been to Museum Sinsheim! 
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Nov 30, 2013 01:13
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Das Volk posted:Someone's been to Museum Sinsheim! I love that place. I haven't been to Germany in 14 years, but I'll probably go to Sinsheim when I go back. Last time it took my father and I two days to see everything we wanted to see. It's only an hour and a half away from the village. e: drat, the village doesn't even show up on google maps  Pretty sad when Mönchsroth over shadows your town.
madeintaipei fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Nov 30, 2013 |
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Nov 30, 2013 01:25
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Holy poo poo, that crankshaft.
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Nov 30, 2013 02:46
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I just caught a story on a deadly failed experiment in centripetal force on a NYC Amtrak commuter.
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Dec 2, 2013 16:19
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It was a Metro North train, though they share the tracks with Amtrak. Metro North goes as far north as Poughkeepsie, while Amtrak continues on up to Albany and parts beyond. Pretty nasty wreck, though could have been a whole heck of a lot worse had it been on a weekday. edit: One of my friends posted this http://myinwood.net/the-spuyten-duyvil-railroad-disaster-of-1882/ which is worth a look if only because of this: 
an AOL chatroom fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 16:52
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B4Ctom1 posted:I just caught a story on a deadly failed experiment in centripetal force on a NYC Amtrak commuter. 82 mph in a 30 mph curve, and the engineer had twenty years of experience.
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Dec 3, 2013 14:27
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Brother Jonathan posted:82 mph in a 30 mph curve, and the engineer had twenty years of experience.
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Dec 3, 2013 14:58
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evil_bunnY posted:It's fascinating watching everyone poo poo a collective brick when rail is still probably a couple orders of magnitude safer per passenger mile. It's just more spectacular. Flying is safe too, but when a plane crashes you know it's all over the news. Especially if it explodes. Train derailment? Oh yeah, lots of mechanical carnage there.
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Dec 3, 2013 17:55
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ijustam posted:It's just more spectacular. Flying is safe too, but when a plane crashes you know it's all over the news. Especially if it explodes. Train derailment? Oh yeah, lots of mechanical carnage there. You should just see what a 10 mph derailment does damage wise.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:01
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Brother Jonathan posted:82 mph in a 30 mph curve, and the engineer had twenty years of experience. Get ready for more PTC chat in congress/the media. Honestly, a busy piece of track with lots of commuter trains is where PTC really should be.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:08
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I follow @MarketUrbanism on Twitter who is part of a cabal of (pro) railroad rabble rousers bitching about FRA regs, and now he's a writer at nextcity.org. Anyway, he wrote a piece about PTC on the line, and apparently Metro North is bitching that PTC is delaying capacity upgrades and doesn't make anybody safer: http://nextcity.org/theworks/entry/signaling-upgrades-might-have-prevented-sundays-metro-north-deaths A lot of his rabble rousing is about costs, particularly in construction and operation of rail lines, so he's always been pretty peeved about all the conductors on these trains, so the article is how Metro North could have saved money and still instituted PTC by switching to Proof of Payment. On the face it makes sense to me. I've taken exactly two commuter railroad trips in my life, a there and back trip on the Metra in Chicago, and the conductor never stamped my ticket on the way back, so proof of payment seems like it would make a lot more sense. So hopefully PTC chat happens, but as I read somewhere, modern railroading safety is about preventing accidents from happening, not mitigating effects of accidents that do happen, so maybe it can lead to a broader discussion about over staffing (but it won't).
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Dec 3, 2013 18:55
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Not that I am an expert about railroads by any means, but they are all very reactionary instead of proactive. While dispatching, I have seen a need for more crews or we are going to have some issues, so I let the correct person know.... and nothing gets done about it. And don't ever dare step over one person to the next level... that really really pisses someone off. But lets be honest, its down to dollars and cents here. If it costs money, we dont want to do it.
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Dec 3, 2013 19:28
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BrokenKnucklez posted:If it costs money, we dont want to do it.
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Dec 3, 2013 20:35
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BrokenKnucklez posted:But lets be honest, its down to dollars and cents here. If it costs money, we dont want to do it. CSX is in the process of spending tens of millions to upgrade existing/build new intermodal terminals and create double stack corridors. NS is spending money on double stack clearance, don't know about terminal improvements. Some of these new terminals are getting multi-million dollar all electric cranes, instead of rubber tire gantry/sideloaders/reach stackers, in order to reduce its carbon footprint and cut fuel/maintenance costs on traditional container handling equipment. Not that I disagree with your sentiment. My own little piece of the railroad, however small and non-representative of the whole it might be, has a terrible operational culture. Anything that can get put off, does get put off.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:00
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I think freight in the US is a much different beast than passenger anywhere, or even freight in Europe. Bottom line, we haul a ton of freight by rail in the US, and it's a profitable venture. Passenger rail isn't profitable in the US or UK and governments focused on not subsiding things are loath to put more money into a service that doesn't generate balance sheet return. I think other European countries have a more liberal view and thus are investing more in their passenger infrastructure in ways we aren't willing to do here in America.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:06
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FISHMANPET posted:I think freight in the US is a much different beast than passenger anywhere, or even freight in Europe. Bottom line, we haul a ton of freight by rail in the US, and it's a profitable venture. Passenger rail isn't profitable in the US or UK and governments focused on not subsiding things are loath to put more money into a service that doesn't generate balance sheet return. Passenger rail rates are pretty insane. It would cost me $750(and 2 hours of driving to get to Cleveland) to get from Cleveland, OH to Jacksonville, FL and back. It costs me $300 for a round trip ticket airline ticket from where I live and I wouldn't have to drive 2 hours.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:15
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Passenger rail rates are pretty insane. It would cost me $750(and 2 hours of driving to get to Cleveland) to get from Cleveland, OH to Jacksonville, FL and back. It costs me $300 for a round trip ticket airline ticket from where I live and I wouldn't have to drive 2 hours. Long distance rail like that isn't really meant to be actual transportation, anyway. They are leisure tours more than anything. Even at high speeds, they would be uncompetitive with airlines on any route of that length.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:24
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Yeah, I'm the guy that took a first class sleeper Minneapolis to Portland for my honeymoon, I think it's an experience that everybody should have, but the train was a part of the trip rather than just a way to get where I was going. On the other hand, if you overlay France's TGV network centered on Paris on top of a map of the US centered on Chicago and compare city sizes, the populations and distances match up pretty well. Rail can be really competitive with air travel on short distances.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:26
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FISHMANPET posted:Yeah, I'm the guy that took a first class sleeper Minneapolis to Portland for my honeymoon, I think it's an experience that everybody should have, but the train was a part of the trip rather than just a way to get where I was going. CDG on its own is the size of a small city, so you're probably right travel-time wise.
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Dec 3, 2013 23:25
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So now officials are saying that the engineer during the Metro-North derailment lost consciousness before the turn. Expect to hear more calls for cab cameras.
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Dec 4, 2013 03:05
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Well, the union said he "nodded." Not quite sure what that means.
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Dec 4, 2013 03:25
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People are puzzling over that. Mini-stroke? Fell asleep? Zoned out? Drunk? Other official descriptions: "Lost focus." "In a daze." One source says "highway hypnosis."
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Dec 4, 2013 03:31
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The tickers and headlines I saw today said he "zoned out".
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Dec 4, 2013 06:12
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NO BLOOD FOR RAIL!
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Dec 4, 2013 08:54
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What everyone is describing is basically micro-sleep. It has a long and bad association with train drivers
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Dec 4, 2013 18:13
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:CSX is in the process of spending tens of millions to upgrade existing/build new intermodal terminals and create double stack corridors. NS is spending money on double stack clearance, don't know about terminal improvements. Some of these new terminals are getting multi-million dollar all electric cranes, instead of rubber tire gantry/sideloaders/reach stackers, in order to reduce its carbon footprint and cut fuel/maintenance costs on traditional container handling equipment. That is associated with revenue, more places to run longer, bigger, and heavier trains. When it comes to safety, its bare essentials to avoid lawsuits. SybilVimes posted:What everyone is describing is basically micro-sleep. It has a long and bad association with train drivers Yes, its incredible what micro sleep is like. I used to experience it quite a bit when I was in the field. Its not as bad now, but flopping around from nights, days, afternoons, days, afternoons, nights, afternoons, it screws with your system. Thats pretty much why most railroaders kick the bucket 2-3 years after retirement at 60.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:18
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BrokenKnucklez posted:That is associated with revenue, more places to run longer, bigger, and heavier trains. When it comes to safety, its bare essentials to avoid lawsuits. Whats the point? If your number one incident factor is "Human error, railroad employee"(I'm just guessing here), then there isn't a whole lot that you can do to reduce it. At best: hire smart, reliable people and make sure they are trained and rested.
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Dec 4, 2013 19:43
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Whats the point? If your number one incident factor is "Human error, railroad employee"(I'm just guessing here), then there isn't a whole lot that you can do to reduce it. At best: hire smart, reliable people and make sure they are trained and rested. Again, this is why trying to discuss operations with some one that's looking from the outside, is extremely hard to do. Most of the derailments that are experienced are broken rails. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-train-derailments-happen-how-technology-might-or-might-not-stop-them-1491914 Human factor derailments are pretty small. And again, if they were super concerned with safety, Positive Train Control (PTC) would have been implemented (at no cost), and the whole disaster been averted and eliminating the human factor part of all this. If there was a way for some one to experience what the rail industry was like first hand (and a museum does not count), I think the tune of many people would be changed. Das Volk posted:Are the rail unions not able to negotiate sane hours for their workforce? vvv Well there are line ups, but horribly inaccurate - if your turning and burning on your rest (going to work every 10 hours) its easy to get rest and get right back to work. Its when you sit for a day 1st person ready to go to work for 24 hours not sure when your going to work is what sucks. Yard jobs generally are shift work 630-8, 1430-1600, 2230-2359 are the work windows. Locals have defined start times, but the majority of work on the railroad is thru freight, which just shows up when ever it gets there. Also there are extraboards that fill in for the yard and locals to, so there again lies the fact that if some one gets sick at the last second for his night job, you have to cover it and you have been up all day. I can try to explain it a little better after work tonight. BrokenKnucklez fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 19:52
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