I have read this link from Railway Age and have downloaded the PDF provided at the end of the article. It sheds light on issues surrounding autonomous train operation, monster trains, and inadequate brake control to mitigate in-train forces.
The PDF is: Management of In**‐**Train Forces: Challenges and Directions Railroad Safety White Paper Grady C. Cothen, Jr.
Some railroads are interested in running so-called monster trains with Automatic Train Operation (ATO). This report advocates that monster trains also need ECP brakes to better control and mitigate in-train forces, which increase with train length. However, the industry opposes ECP brakes by saying that they are not reliable, cannot be maintained, are not necessary, and cost too much.
The author makes the point that the monster trains are made possible and well served by the advent of distributed power, but are lacking in braking performance. So it is that deficiency in braking that causes excessive slack draft and buff forces th
I have read this link from Railway Age and have downloaded the PDF provided at the end of the article. It sheds light on issues surrounding autonomous train operation, monster trains, and inadequate brake control to mitigate in-train forces.
The PDF is: Management of In**‐**Train Forces: Challenges and Directions Railroad Safety White Paper Grady C. Cothen, Jr.
Some railroads are interested in running so-called monster trains with Automatic Train Operation (ATO). This report advocates that monster trains also need ECP brakes to better control and mitigate in-train forces, which increase with train length. However, the industry opposes ECP brakes by saying that they are not reliable, cannot be maintained, are not necessary, and cost too much.
The author makes the point that the monster trains are made possible and well served by the advent of distributed power, but are lacking
The ‘ATO’ headend and ground based devices will cost much more than a crewmember. One would think they would continue with long trains with legacy equipment with a robot leader.
Yes, I think that is exactly what they will do. They want no part of ECP brakes. However, their venture into longer and longer trains, breaking all previous records, is now subjecting them to the possibility of a Federal limit on train length and tonnage.
And that limit may be far lower than current monster train practice let alone what they will do in the future.
Regarding cost of automation versus cost for human crews: I don’t see any way to conclude that the automation equipment will cost more than human crews. If that were the case, why are they so interested in automation? For proper comparison, you would have to compare total life cost of automation equipment with the number of human work cycles eliminated by the automation equipment.
The money for labor comes out of a different pocket than automation. Automation is a capital expense that they can depreciate out over years. Labor is right now. Cut labor, you cut a portion of the expense of operation, which probably helps the OR.
For sake of discussion, lets say that the ATO investment per engine equals running a 2-person crew for 10 years. Why would they want to run more smaller trains when they can maximize their investment by running longer trains. >15k ft and ATO will require ground support.
There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle. Here are the pieces and their pros and cons. What would be the best choice of these pieces?
MONSTER TRAINS:
Preferred by railroads.
Pros: Haul the most tonnage per crew cost.
Cons: More delays and breakdowns per tonnage/cars moved. Raise questions of the danger of excessive duration of blockage of grade crossings, and excessive in-train forces which can cause derailments. Possible imposition of new Federal limits on train length/tonnage to address the issues of crossing blockage and dangerous excess in-train forces.
SMALLER, FASTER, & MORE FREQUENT TRAINS:
Not preferred by railroads.
Pros: Fewer delays and breakdowns per tonnage/cars moved. Better customer service and scheduling. No need for Distributed Power. No excessive crossing blockage. No excessive in-train forces.
Not necessairly true in the airline industry. Jumbo jets are being left in the bone yard where as B-737s both regular and Maxs are starting to be ordered.
In part because the airport infrastructure never got built up to adequately handle the Jumbo planes and the airlines never implemented a fare structure designed to keep the planes flying at capacity.
When two engine airliners were granted authority to fly the over ocean routes, the need for four engine Jumbo’s wilted in fuel costs.
The only autonomous heavy freight trains running today are on the Rio Tionto railway in Western Australia.
They have ECP brakes.
While it is and independent and isolated system, they have more than 10 000 ore cars and 200 plus locomotives. Not all trains are autonomous since only the route from one major mine to the two ports are set up for autonomous operation, so on the other branches loco crew are used. But all ore cars and all locomotives have ECP braking.
Back in 1978, I took actual measurements of tension and compression forces at the 200th 130 long ton car in a loaded train both climbing grades and descending long steep grades using an instrumented drawbar.
My recollection is the the high compression forces were 600kN , something like 60 long tons force.
At the end of that particular run, an emergency stop caused by a mistake in the Yard Tower broke the train in five places, including one of the drawbars between car pairs. It was moving slowly on a gentle downgrade.
Rio tinto never considered running Autonomous trains before they had enough ECP braked ore cars, and as I said, all trains have ECP brakes.
All the iron ore carriers in that region, BHP, Fortescue and Roy Hill have all ECP fleets although none of those operators run autonomous trains. BHP is about the same size operation as Rio Tinto, the Forstescue, then Roy Hill.
I have read this link from Railway Age and have downloaded the PDF provided at the end of the article. It sheds light on issues surrounding autonomous train operation, monster trains, and inadequate brake control to mitigate in-train forces.
The PDF is: Management of In**‐**Train Forces: Challenges and Directions Railroad Safety White Paper Grady C. Cothen, Jr.
Some railroads are interested in running so-called monster trains with Automatic Train Operation (ATO). This report advocates that monster trains also need ECP brakes to better control and mitigate in-train forces, which increase with train length. However, the industry opposes ECP brakes by saying that they are not reliable, cannot be maintained, are not necessary, and cost too much.