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Computer Glitch Stalls Trains in 6 States
Wed Jan 12, 5:54 PM ET U.S. National - AP
WASHINGTON - A computer glitch affecting a major freight railroad stalled trains in six states and the District of Columbia for about 90 minutes Wednesday and delayed service on about a dozen commuter lines.
At about 3 p.m. EST, a computer server at a dispatch center for CSX Transportation went down, which affected the railroad’s ability to signal and align trains. CSX is the largest rail system in the eastern United States.
CSX spokeswoman Misty Skipper said train traffic was halted in the Baltimore, Washington and Pittsburgh areas, and parts of North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio and Virginia.
Eight Amtrak trains traveling south of Washington and four commuter trains in northern and central Virginia were delayed because they run on tracks owned by CSX.
Information (data) needs to be saved as a “Hot” real-time backup that is ready to assume duties at a momet’s notice.
It is too bad that server went down. They should have had something ready to take over it’s duties. I canot believe such mission critical and important computers (Servers) are not supported or defended against a phycial shut down by what ever may cause it in the future.
I hope that the railroad will recitify this without any loss or damage and in the future plan for a similar outage.
A few hours?? I spent 21 hours in a yard office over three days just waiting to get train bulletins. One day we never left. The train was annulled. Trouble getting train bulletins is a major cause of delays on CSX. They should have kept the Conrail system in which the bulletins were issued for the entire system at one time and the crews just picked up a copy when going on duty. Instead they try to send a copy addressed specifically to each train and crew even though they are all the same.
I can’t believe that they do not have a back up. In my job with public safety we have two back up servers for our primary they swicth over in a “nanno” second.
Is this an issue with their IT or is it a question of trying to make a system do to much with to little?
They have back up servers. Just remember this isn’t a home PC. There are lots of different systems (dispatching, signal, commmunications, information) feeding in together to make it work. Any one of which could fail or any two of which could stop talking and plug the whole works. For example the signal systems feed events to the dispatching system via the communications system, the dispatching system generates warrants and might send them to the field using the information systems via the communications system. Add in that there may be several different railroads worth of interfaces and that can get pretty complicated.
I’m not saying that it isn’t bad or that it probably could be avoided, but that it not as simple as just reaching down and pushing the reboot button on your PC.
This is what happened at Comair after their computer glitch!!
Comair President Resigns After Fiasco
Monday January 17, 3:24 pm ET
Comair President Randy Rademacher Resigns After Computer Fiasco Shut Down Flights on Christmas
CINCINNATI (AP) – The president of Delta subsidiary Comair Inc. resigned Monday, weeks after the failure of an overloaded computer system shut down the carrier’s flights nationwide on Christmas.
Be glad they won’t be back, as they would be decidedly unwelcome insofar as the operating employees are concerned! Both men made huge, almost draconian personnel cuts that many feel went too deep.2. BTW: The dispatching problems are systemic, and cannot be given a quick fix. The DS’ in Selkirk have joked about it since CSX took over their territory. They keep LOTS of form C-1s around. So, Where can I see a copy of this form, which replaced the form D.(NORAC/D) 3. Many trains are delayed by paperwork not being ready, a malady from which NO train is immune even Q100 and its counterpart WB, Q109, too!