Burlington Northern System Gets Safety Approval

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Burlington Northern System Gets Safety Approval
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
January 8, 2007 5:27 p.m.

(Updates with comments from CSX in 12th and 13th paragraphs.)

     By Desiree J. Hanford     Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)–Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) is the first of the four big U.S. railroads to receive federal approval for a system that should help prevent certain accidents, such as train collisions.

The Federal Railroad Administration announced Monday that it had approved Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s Electronic Train Management System for use on some of its network. The system uses a digital communications network and a global positioning system to monitor a train’s speed, location and other factors. The system will warn a train’s crew of any problems and automatically engage the braking system if the crew fails to respond.

The ETMS will overlay with Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s existing systems, augmenting what the railroad already has in place.

“We think we have a technology that’s reliable, does what it’s supposed to do and is affordable,” said Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Richard Russack, who declined to comment on the price of developing and rolling out the system.

The railroad was given a waiver by the Federal Railroad Administration in 2003 to proceed with a pilot project to operate ETMS-equipped test trains on a 135-mile corridor between Beardstown, Ill., and Centralia, Ill. It was then given permission in May to test ETMS on a 300-mile route between Arkansas City, Kan., and Fort Worth, Texas.

Monday’s approval means the railroad, whose tracks are mainly in the western two-thirds of the U.S., can roll out ETMS on 35 freight lines in 17 states. That work will begin in the second quarter.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe will likely have a better idea of what the next phase of the rollout will be once the Arkansas City-to-Fort Worth route is completed, Russ

2

I think that it is nice that the railroads are pursuing technology that will help prevent accidents, but I have a question:

Why is FRA approval needed for a railroad to put a warning/detection system in place?

3

As the article stated: "The standards were published more than a year ago, and the railroads have to show the administration that their software and hardware technologies will meet certain requirements in order to get approval… "

In essence there is a set of standards that railroads have to meet in order to go forward with their safety plan.

4

I have a habit of not stating myself clearly. Let me try to rephrase what my mind is thinking.

If I owned a trucking company, and wanted to be able to track the locations of each truck in the system, I would not need to get approval for that. Okay, you might say that the reason is that safety is not involved.

But the technology that the railroads are implementing is not replacing existing safety procedures, only supplementing it. In other words, it is taking a pretty good system and trying to make it even better.

Since the FRA is happy with the existing system, why should improvements that in no way detract from the existing system have to meet with FRA approval? It is almost like the government is saying, “Here is the level of safety that you must meet, but you can’t be any safer than that without our approval.”

I could understand the need for FRA approval if the new technology were replacing existing technology. Such as ABS brakes on cars replacing standard non-ABS brakes. Those ABS brakes had better work at least as well.

Sometimes I think that the government outsmarts itself, but then again, maybe I am just missing a piece of the picture.

5

The FRA is not happy with the current system. They have been pushing Positive Train Control approaches for several years.

6

Read it as “one step closer to one man crews, or non crewed” automatic or remote controled trains, and the need for Federal approval becomes more clear.

7

yep…that is exactly what it is… and how to read between the lines on this issue

csx engineer

8

Keep in mind that the NTSB took Metra to task for not having such a system in place in its report on the derailment at a crossover near 47th Street that killed two passengers.

9

Glad you said it first.

This will be a first step towards a fully integrated, standardized auto pilot system . with the accent on “standardized”

10

Software reliability is one very important reason that the FRA and standards are involved. Anytime there is software involved in the operation of moving objects there is potential for problems. Brings new meaning to the computer catch phrase “blue screen of death”.

dd

11

I agree, in part. However the phrase “blue screen of death” has typically been referenced with respect to Microsoft operating systems crash/debug screen.

I have no clue as to the actual details of the operating systems, platforms, applications, software, etc… that are utilized by the railroad safety systems. I am taking a guess where that while it may be likely that Microsoft desktop PC’s using variants of Windows OS (2000, XP, 2003, Vista) for use in client end users systems, I am sure the production level application servers are more prone to be operating more reliable systems such as UNIX, LINUX, or even some IBM mainframe systems with redundancy built in as well.

12

FRA OKs Safety Plan For Wabtec’s ETMS Train-Control System

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
January 10, 2007 12:55 p.m.

Wabtec Corp. (WAB) said BNSF Railway Co. will begin using Wabtec’s automatic train-control system on portions of its network after the Federal Railroad Administration approved a product-safety plan.

Wabtec, a Wilmerding, Pa., train component company said Wednesday that BNSF will begin rolling out the Electronic Train Management System on portions of its network once it meets employee-training and record-keeping imposed in the FRA’s approval.

The train-management system uses digital communications and global-positioning devices to track and, in some cases, control train speed and movement to prevent accidents such as collisions, the FRA said in a separate release.

BNSF began testing Wabtec’s system in 2004 on 50 locomotives along a 135-mile corridor of track between Beardstown and Centralia, Ill., Wabtec said.

The company received in May 2006 permission to test the system on a 300-mile corridor between Kansas and Texas. BNSF said it will begin implementation along this stretch of rails in the second quarter.

The FRA’s most recent action allows BNSF to implement Wabtec’s system on 35 specific freight lines in 17 states and requires employee training before it can be initiated.

-James DeWeese

13

A question from a person who is “electronically challenged”:

Is this new Wabtech system similar to the one Chicago’s Metra will be implementing?

al-in-chgo

14

Metra’s implementation will use the same system as BNSF’s.

S. Hadid

15

This is an overlay system only. It is not the basic train-control system, which remains CTC, TWC, or other “traditional” methods. The failure state is the same as not having it at all, that is, it only adds safety.

Railroad microprocessor-based systems are regulated by 49 CFR 236 Subpart H. It’s available on-line if you want to read it and see for yourself the requirements for redundancy, fail-safe states, and software validation. Software validation requirements and hardware redundancy requirements are the same as those used in avionics and commercial aircraft control systems, which means they are extremely expensive to implement and highly reliable. Consider how many commercial aircraft take off every day, and how many crash due to software/electronics failures. Not too many, eh?

S. Hadid

16

ETMS and other similar systems has absolutely nothing to do with remote control and is not a pathway toward remote control of any train. It is nothing but a system of monitoring train location within authority limits granted by traditional Methods of Operation such as TWC or CTC, and braking the train as it approaches the end of its authority limits if the train if it predicts the train will exceed authority limits. It also monitors train speed and location as the train approaches permanent and temporary speed restrictions and brakes the train if it predicts the train will otherwise enter the speed restriction in an overspeed state.

S. Hadid

17

You did not miss any pieces of the picture.

S. Hadid