At one time alot of the technological innovation that applied to railroads came from the railroads themselves… ie new steam locomotive designs, the safety cab, Positive Traction Control, gas turbine locomotives among many others. Do railroads still have their own engineering/research departments? Apparently they do some engineering development like PTC, but are their other examples?
Short answer is yes. However a since the railroad builds very few of its own cars or engines, it does smaller projects (e.g. the Aerowedge being discussed in one of the other threads). A lot of the track and dynamic research is done through the AAR TTCI. With computer modeling and smaller sensors research can be done virtually or with a very small footprint. Any engine or car could roll by you and it could be wired for data collection many times more detailed than a dynomometer car of old, but unless you knew exactly where to look, might never see that a test was being made. The next generation TIH cars have been out there running around for months or years (not loaded with TIH by the way) cranking up the mileage being tested and nobody knows its there. Just another black tank car.
The current breed is more like a pack of industrial engineers…Plus, if the job is big enough, the consultants like ZetaTech get the call.
Most business’ have dropped true pure research. Patents are a joke today there are many ways to get around them. It is easier and cheaper to lease or purchase technology then to invent it. The bottom line rules. Most of the innovation is in marketing efforts.
What few people realize is that the patent process itself is a joke. It is a game of language and perceptions where everything is subjective. On the surface, it seems as if creating a patent application and having it reviewed by the patent office is an exact, objective methodology. After all, it is all about the “nuts and bolts” of physical features of a proposed product.
But in reality, there is endless debate about how your ideas interact with the claims of someone else’s ideas. This debate is not resolved upon being granted a patent. A lot of ideas that receive patents are not very marketable. The patent does not address whether the idea is good or not. Those patents on bad ideas are neither here nor there because the product does not sell.
But if you patent something that sells, everyone will copy it and infringe on your patent. Then you have to take them all to court, and the court decides what your patent means. The patent office that gave you the patent has no stake or say in the matter. The whole premise that a patent has defined your invention in contrast to all the other possible combinations of features is absurd. The scope of that relationship is too large to evaluate.
Interesting thread;
I’m curious about some of the items you mention as being railroad rather than manufacturer developments.
Safety Cabs- Canadian National was first, but didn’t EMD derive the design from their previous 40/45 series cowl units (which came about from an ATSF request IIRC) and UP’s Centennial’s?
Positive Traction control-would the first be GE’s “Super series” wheel slip control for BN U30C’s?
Gas Turbine Locomotives-Everything I’ve read says that GE came up with the concept and pitched it to several railroads. UP was the only taker. I believe GE thought of it before Westinghouse/Lima (builders of the “Blue Goose” GTEL)…
Some major improvements were by vendors. Things like air brakes and knuckle couplers revolutionized the industry. And don’t overlook the role of EMD in changing railroading forever. Probably most of the innovative technology was by vendors. Major companies in all fields seem to develop an attitude of,“we’ve never done that before”.
Euclid, you seem to speak from unhappy experience. True?
I had four patents at one time. First you have to find out someone has violated the patent which is less likely than finding a stolen car. Then you send them acease and desist registered letter before taking them to court. In the meantime the Chinese, Japanese and Russians are checking all the new patents for stuff and processes they can steal. When I worked for a major chemical company they patented a process involving a highly flamable gas but purposely left out one key component. A couple of years later at a trade show a man with a thick Russian accent asked how many men we killed during development. Wonder why?
Yes, there is some honor among thieves–the Russian-accented man was honest enough to admit he had tried to steal your company’s patent.
ZetaTech has always had a questionable reputation in the industry (I could tell stories but will refrain) but now that they are owned by Harsco I wonder how unbiased any of their work would be.
The patent is really only the first step and pretty much useless unless the inventor can bring his/her creation to the marketplace quickly or has a partnership with a large established manufacturer with deep pockets. The lonewolf inventor without the wherewithal to defend his/her patent may as well forget about it… the only winner will be the patent attorneys and the inventor to the extent that he/she has bragging rights to the patent. Big deal. The days of Thomas Edison who could knock off 1200 patents are over… now seeing even a single patent application through to completion would test the finances and time committment of most inventors.
Trains’ 1960’s - 1970s “Professional Iconoclast” John G. Kneiling made this point the theme of many of his columns, articles, and perhaps even in his book, Integral Train Systems. He criticized most research departments as being essentially Quality Acceptance functions, or working on non-controversial projects - he once mentioned an AAR effort to develop an “atomic switch lamp” as one example of that. [swg] Today, I would not include track geometry or rail wear measurement cars or functions - those are more like MOW monitoring, rather than discovering new things or relationships.
Norfolk Southern at least purports to have a reseach department:
http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/bizns/bizNS1-6.pdf
Also, its Juniata Shops at Altoona have done some, such as the battery locomtive a few years back, No. 999 of class BP-4 (pages 7 - 9 of the above http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/bizns/bizNS1-6.pdf ).
BNSF (and others) are now working on natural gas-fueled locomotives.
Many Class 1’s and some commuter lines are
would optimizing operations be considered research?
are railroads intrerested in minimizing fuel costs and/or maintainance by optimizing the speed of trains, weight limits while accounting for grades?
would a research/operations department be constantly trying optimize the engine type or best use of engine through the system?
would a savings of 1% be worth it? 0.01%?
Don’t lose sight of how massive the numbers are of anything related to railroading - number of cars and engines, ties and rail, miles of track, signals to name a few. Any significant change has to be implemented over a long period of time yet most business today requires a two year or less return on investment to be justifiable. With the costs in possibly billions of dollars I think all we will see are tweaks to the current state of railroading unless federaly mandated by the fine folks who gave us toilets that don’t flush among many other idiotic improvements.