EMP device effect locomotives,signals,switches

[adrianspeeder]

Americans spend more time worrying about everything that we have ever considered doing to other countries than anyone else in the world. If you are worried about someone detonating a nuclear device in orbit over the USA you need to get a life. We are bankrupting our country out of fear. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars harassing Americans who are just trying to travel around the country because we are terrified by a small band of primitives half way around the world. We spend trillions of dollars supporting a military that costs more that the next 10 largest militaries combined. What are we afraid of? Our entire federal government has the same mentality as those idiotic doomsday preppers that you can see on TV. You know the ones. They have a bunker in or under their house stocked with a couple of years worth of canned goods, water, 10,000 rounds of ammunition for their dozens of guns. It is a mental illness. I really hope that the paranoia never spreads to our railroads.

Have you met the mo’fos that want to kill us?

Adrianspeeder

[Semper_Vaporo]

FWIW, and EMP attack would be the most reliable way for a nation with a very limited number of nukes and unreliable (read wildly inaccurate) ballistic missiles to attack and cause significant infrastructure damage to an industrialized country. The likelihood of such an attack is not high enough that we need to spend trillions of dollars on making our infrastructure invulnerable, but not so low that we can’t afford to make no preparations whatsoever. For the RR’s, preparations would be having a supply of spares of sensitive control electronics as opposed to EMP hardening said electronics. In some ways, preparing for EMP isn’t that much different than preparing for a lightning strike.

In regards to RR’s and security, my biggest concern is the implementation of Positive Train Control with respect to protection against hacking.

• Erik

Don’t forget that EMP will damage any electronic equipment that is not adequately shielded whether it is turned on or not. Even sitting on a shelf in a box in the warehouse it can be burned out by the electrical currents that are induced in the equipment by the EMP. So spares would need to be housed in shielded buildings to keep the EMP out.

[jeffhergert]

FWIW, and EMP attack would be the most reliable way for a nation with a very limited number of nukes and unreliable (read wildly inaccurate) ballistic missiles to attack and cause significant infrastructure damage to an industrialized country. The likelihood of such an attack is not high enough that we need to spend trillions of dollars on making our infrastructure invulnerable, but not so low that we can’t afford to make no preparations whatsoever. For the RR’s, preparations would be having a supply of spares of sensitive control electronics as opposed to EMP hardening said electronics. In some ways, preparing for EMP isn’t that much different than preparing for a lightning strike.

In regards to RR’s and security, my biggest concern is the implementation of Positive Train Control with respect to protection against hacking.

• Erik

We had a conductor who was caught breaking into a signal bungalow over by Marshalltown. He was into computers big time. They found out he was very close to being able to hack into the CTC system and control switches and signals. I guess he didn’t like waiting for the Long Pools to go by him. Needless to say, he is no longer with the railroad.

Jeff

[ericsp]

Recent stories about security holes in SCADA systems do leave me a bit leery about the implementation of PTC, though it is possible that the developers do know what they are doing with respect to security.

• Erik

I from the articles I have read about supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, it looks like the secure ones are the exception.

[petitnj]

One has to remember that the threat of EMP is based on scarce 1960 data and extrapolations that are clearly suspect. The electric fields predicted are no more that those experienced in lightning strikes and most electrical systems surge but do not “fry” at a nearby stroke. Clearly if we have overhead thermonuclear explosions we will lose some communication systems but will have much more to worry about than whether phones work.

[csmith9474]

Don’t forget about telecommunications. We have one of the largest telecommunications networks in the US. The telecom side of things is one thing a lot of folks don’t consider, especially as a railfan. If we lose utilities, Mr Onan is only going to help for so long.

[Deirius]

One wonders what the EPA will have to say when the only locomotives working after an EMP happen to be the oldest dirtiest ones on the rails

[SALfan]

EPA and the lotus-eaters who think EPA doesn’t go nearly far enough will only get rational when their lattes and Birkenstocks don’t get delivered.

[Ironeagle2006]

Nah they would have a Cornory when the ONLY things working are the OLD Steamers Oldest Nastiest Diesels and those Guys that can repair Wiring can get their Hot Rods Running as anything with a Computer in it including the Phones they Rely on well it is going to be JUNK.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

When you consider what causes an EMP, I don’t think that too much of anything will be working very well, at least not before radiation levels drop.