From the Trains Newswire:
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/09/13-computer-runs-train-at-test-track-nyab-announces
I don’t think anyone has yet precisely defined PSR, but it seems like a marker to the future, kind of like PTC or any form of automation. Right in there with that general trend, I see automated running, once we figure out how to handle those broken knuckles.
A test train’s purpose is testing - nothing else, on a test track with a fully known geometry and without connection to ‘real world’ operations. I could hook my truck up to some cars, put it in cruise control and say it was Self Driving.
Maybe so, but I don’t think that is the point.
Thirty freight cars “over a variety of terrain, starting and stopping on uphill, downhill, and flat grades.” I’m not a railroader, but this seems like they’re just testing basic functions. With just thirty cars, the terrain won’t vary much over the length of the train. How will it handle 150 cars over varying terrain with parts of the train going uphill and parts going downhill? I think they’ll need a lot of real life testing.
By the way, I’ve suspected from the start that part of the reason the railroads didn’t protest more over the PTC mandate was that they saw it as a possible step in the direction of automated unmanned trains.
Trip optimizer and auto throttle are already being used in places.
With PTC and near pin-point geolocation from GPS, integration with TO, etc, makes a self driving train just that much closer.
Could it be that with such a self-driving arrangement will work better with shorter trains? If you take away the manpower issue, and run trains that only require one locomotive, you can cut some costs.
Odds are there will be problems with the 12,000 foot “land barges” that are seen on the road today, as suggested.
With the reduced crew costs that will accompany automation, isn’t there less incentive for long trains?
Maybe the crewless “train of tomorrow” will be made up of one locomotive pulling 40 cars at 20 mph, where all meets are rolling and scheduled?
This just in:
From the home of NYAB, Watertown, NY and the Watertown Daily Times.
Larry and Convicted One,
I think you are right about self-driving trains leading the way to shorter trains.
I expect the railroads to latch onto the self-driving train concept with a vigor that makes their sudden zest for PSR pale by comparison. For one thing PSR is more marketing hype than actual substance. That is why nobody can define it. But there is real substance in self-driving trains and all the automation that will also make operations safer. Now you’re talking real substance, and it will finally be able to deliver the precision and timing that PSR now only implies as a wish. It will move PSR from a slogan to a reality.
The monster trains now in vogue are justified by moving more tonnage with fewer operators on board. This was the fundamental advantage of trains going back to their inception. Dieselization maximized that advantage by providing M.U., allowing additional locomotives without requiring additional crews to operate them. But still, all the power needed to be on the head end, and so the drawbar strength was the limit to this M.U. enabled maximum train length.
Then came D.P.U. which shattered the M.U. limitation of drawbar strength. Now, with D.P.U, the only limitation to train length under the control of one engineer is control signal strength. Yet I expect that increasing the D.P.U. signal capability will be a piece of cake for a society that plans to colonize Mars.
Nevertheless, monster tr
I don’t think that the trains would necessarily have to be “fast”. I think the speed they would be run at would be optimized to coordinate meets.
I picture a system running at a 20 mph constant with passing sidings located with sufficient frequency where few, if any, trains truly had to stop in route for meets.
The EMS technicians that come out in the field from time to time have told us they have been working on the auto control of the air brakes. That it wasn’t far off.
I may see one person crews, but I don’t think I’ll ever see completely crewless trains. (I don’t expect to see totally driverless trucks,either.) It will certainly change the job of locomotive engineer, more to an observer ready to take control when the system fails. At least on rotes equipped for such operation.
I work with these EMS auto control systems. They work almost flawlessly at times, some types of trains better than others, and they’ve caused train separations and even a minor derailment. Sure, technology can and will get better as time goes on. Still, one must remember that these devices trying to replace imperfect humans is designed, built, and (most importantly) maintained by imperfect humans. That maintaining part will be the important factor. It probably won’t be maintained as well as it should be.
Jeff
The fully autonomous train of the future is going to pass right by locomotive hauled trains for self powered platforms for a true DP setup… They can couple decouple on the fly with fully automated couplers… Yet I wouldn’t expect em all to be short… I can still see a train of 50-60 5 pack nextgen self powered maxi stack IV’s carrying hundreds of ISO boxes from port to fully automated IM terminals… The current ICE power source replaced with a simpler battery/capacitor layout, or Maglev, and the complete elimination of, crossings, and carload freight will have to happen before trains become truly autonomus. Trucks will eventually just be boxes on wheels with large batttery or capacitior packs. I assume this will lead to a truly integrated road-rail network. Of course these items are 4-5 decades away, or more…
Based on my knowledge of what IT and computers can currently handle I would have to agree with the rail union perspective that we are nowhere near crewless frieght trains on the national rail network. It’s going to take decades of training AI to get to the point where it is reliable enough to use in place of the cab based operating crew without causing or creating collisions or derailments. It’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Can you cite a source for that rail union perspective?
You can start by perusing the responses mentioned here.. Then a quick search on some of the names of the responding organizations should quicly flesh out their current positions.
Note that in some respects this is a very fast-moving technology and in others almost petherically retarded. It requires more than the usual care to assess what is and isn’t practical, or more importantly what is and isn’t required for a particular intended use of the technology.
(Personally I don’t think fully autonomous trains of any particular size will ever be wholly practical in the North American political and legal climate, even were there to be some version of a Price-Anderson act or some Amtrak-like cap on full liability for a given incident. That isn’t important in and of itself, but I have been following the history of autonomous control from my early childhood, when the New York subways got it to work on the Grand Central shuttle for a while, and I continue to study autonomous vehicle tech intensively, and would like to see at least a successful version of one-man operation with autonomous-tech support.)
You mean more accidents and derailments than we have now with humans running the show?
Can you cite your source for your perspective?
My own deductions are my source, and what I have said based on them is only my opinion. I am not challenging what CMStPnP said about the rail unions’ perspective. I am only curious to know exactly what the rail unions said. I would expect them to be vehemently opposed to self-driving trains for whatever reason they can think of. But for them to say it won’t happen soon seems odd to me.
That almost sounds like people who predict something won’t happen because they don’t want it to happen.
Your source is seriouly suspect and has no basis in real world experience in the subject area.
More likely, some trains (such as closed loop mining operations) will be completely autonomous while others will require a crew of two or more (switching a busy industrial branch perhaps).
It should be noted that we’re all in the same boat… regardless of how you earn your living, technology will transform your job in a big way over the next decade. Or maybe not… my crystal ball has been wrong before. I go for my early morning walks thinking about 5G, Blockchain, the Internet of Things… yet the garbage is still picked up via a man in a truck as it was 50 years ago. Sometimes indeed the more things change the more they stay the same.