Trucking companies are busy installing GPS on their trucks, and using IP/satellite communications to:(a) send tracking info to mother ship, and (b) allow two-way real time commmunications, i.e email, order info, etc.
So, maybe railroad companies should consider the same. They could also add on to this technology to eliminate way-side signaling equipment. Feed the real-time train position data back to mother ship, process it, and send the signaling info back to each train. Since the IP/satellite infrastructure is purely digital this would allow high-quaity audio conversations. The digital data stream could be encrypted so all payloads (voice and data) would be scrambled which makes the entire operations more secure. This infrastructure could also be used to carry existing data from existing systems that allow companies to track where boxcars are.
Actually, I believe the railroads are doing some of the same things the truckers are doing in terms of using satellites for locomotive monitoring.
And it seems like I’ve heard of the technology being applied to some container freight already as well.
As for voice communications, the railroads already have a pretty comprehensive comm network, something truckers have never had. While the railroads could eventually go satellite, there is a substantial investment in the current technology, and it is portable within the context of the railroads. A locomotive equipped with a fully functional railroad radio can literally go anywhere in the US and Canadian rail networks, make a couple of simple adjustments, and voila! They can talk to the dispatcher, crew members, and other trains.
As I said, truckers have never had a similar network. While local companies may have had radios, for years the over-the-road types relied on POTS (plain old telephone service). Today they have cell phones, but the emergence of the satellite technology is right up their alley, allowing real-time comms. They also have less call for comms with other trucks/truckers. Everything goes through the dispatcher. CB is, and virtually always has been, for informal, unofficial communications.
You will eventually see more use of satellites. Using GPS for train separation has been discussed here on the forum, but current GPS position resolutions pose a problem for multi-track lines, since you can’t verify which track the train is actually on - a key component in a train control system.
The problem for the railroad is the civilian GPS is not accurate enough to tell which track a train is on in parallel trackage. The civilian signal is slightly degraded compared to the extremely accurate military system.
The railroads do use GPS to track trains. Remember when the 3985 was last out. You could check it progress because it had GPS tracking on it. Many freight engines have it now. They also have remote monitoring to check the well being of the locos. (Just like the OnStar commercials when the “car” emails the owner with maintaince issues and such.)
Recently I was called into the office for doing 36 in a 35 speed zone. The railroad truck I drive sometimes, has a GPS system on it that tracks our whereabouts and speed and a variety of other things.
If you work for a railroad, you are given a password and can access a list/map that shows you where every (I beleive) locomotive is at the time. Rememeber, BNSFengineer talked about finding the ACe’s on it.
(1) GPS on the trains has been around since the 1980’s with Rockwell’s NavStar system that tested on BN and others.
(2) EMD & GE locomotives have “phoning home” since the early 1990’s and all of those units report back to GE at Erie where they are (GPS) and engine status.
(3) GPS Autonomous accuracy is not there yet. (plus or minus six feet is good enuf for dropping guided ordinance on the bad guys but not good enough for meeting trains. There are not enough CORS or HARN reference stations out there to do any good.
(most folks are clueless how GPS works or what it really is, they just think you push “da button” and you get a magic answer from a piece of black box technology…which is what scares surveyors when engineers go out with GPS gear.)…and then there is the multipath issues with those supposebly shielded locomotives.
Jim: If “the office” calls you in about 1 mph over the limit again, ask them if they know the difference between accuracy and precision. (betcha a hot fudge sundae that they can’t and therefore they shouldn’t be calling you in)[;)][;)][;)]
This could be overcome very easily. That section of track could be monitored via traditional means, and linked via satellite. So why the train is not telling mothership where it is, that section of track is.
Yeah…start mixing technologies and old friend Murphy invites himself to the party[}:)][}:)][}:)] …laser centered gyros are too big & unreliable and then there was the learning experience from the Rail Garrison project.
[}:)][}:)][}:)] I see a button pusher badly in need of a reality check (kinda needs to go join the Huck Finn bridge painters)…Let the folks working on the project(s) with the GPS testing continue on, they’ll get there eventually with something that is properly thought out.
If yer calling me a button pusher, all I can say is this: I’ve seen and heard enough resistance from many industrys only to see the naysayers proven wrong that I have come to one conclusions: Anyone one says otherwise is either (a) technically ignorant, or (b) has some other self-serving agenda. [;)]
A “buttonpusher” is anyone who does not understand the fundamental science behind the technology. (and still claims he knows best)…GPS technology gets horribly abused and mis-understood by the technically illiterate. There is absolutely no sense in installing a safety system on a railroad that is subject to almost certain failure because of things that are too wildly variable to control.
It’s not like the Trimbles, the Texas Instruments, Javad, The Rockwells, The AAR’s and multiple small entrepeneurs haven’t tried to work out the problems and are still hard at it. The real world demands reliability and precision that isn’t there yet. Trucking and railroading are apples and oranges in that department. It’s not an instant solution.
And, I might add, the technically semi-literate. The problem with GPS and rail transpotation at this point is a surplus of corner-cases where things can go wrong. GPS can contribute to a solution, no doubt, but I don’t think it is the unique solution in any case.
The current uses of health status uplinking and similar data transfer are good uses of the technology in hand, and I have no doubt that the companies and suppliers will continue to expand the envelope within reason.
That being said, “They could also add on to this technology to eliminate way-side signaling equipment,” sounds good but using “eliminate” is indicative of an extremely optimistic goal that may not actually add up.
Thanks for the link to another forum. In that thread some of em insist that GPS and other technology cannot be used cause it would not be fail safe, and the current signaling system is fail safe. This arguement is fundamentally flawed cause humans are far from fail-safe. The Toronto Transit Commission had an under ground collision cause a subway train driver choose to drive on past two signals with red aspect…and as luck would have it the trip arms were broken. So if fail-safe is what it must be, then out with the humans and in with 100% automation!!
However, that just said, one point was mentioned that I had forgotten, and my technical mind tells me no GPS system in the world can detect a broken rail. However that also said I actually saw two rails joined with one of those bolted steel plate brackets, and I’m not kidding ya…that bracket was completly split apart…yet electrically the continuity was there cause signals were operating fine, and trains were going over it… So I guess we don’t have 100% fail safe in the track circuitry either do we? [;)]
All the rail joints I’ve seen (not to say all everywhere in the world) that have electrical current running thru them usually have a bond wire between the rail ends. The angle bars could break, but if the wire connection isn’t broken, the signals still operate normally. That’s why track inspectors physically inspect track, to find such defects.
100 percent automation isn’t fool proof either. A human being was involved somewhere in the design or construction of the system.
You can’t really use satelites for voice. Even traveling at the spped of light the distance is so great that there is a delay in reception. People are not willing to put up with this.
Normally you speak and expect the other person to respond. That’s not going to happen via satelite. There’s a delay. It drives people nuts.
Satelites are fine for moving data, but they flat out suck for person to person voice.
IBM tried to get into the long distance telephone business via a satelite system. Didn’t work. People were confused, upset, and everything else by the delay. IBM wound up selling its satelite system to MCI (my employer at the time) who was able to use it as a data transmission system. Our voice traffic moved via fiber optics which have no delay.