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Why is there no auto pilot for trains?
We have autonomous drones and space craft. Also self driving cars that deal with an unpredictable analog world. Why is it so hard to automate a train that only runs on a track?
GPS would give its location and maps would indicate the speed for the given section of track.
Sure, someone(s) need to watch for hazards and emergency situations, but humans are incapable of the vigilance and long work hours that machines are.
How about a light 500-1000 lb scout locomotive that runs hundreds or thousands of yards ahead of the train and radios back track conditions?
It isn't going to happen. It would be WAY easier to migrate all computer keyboards to a Dvorak layout vs the Qwerty layout they use now than to change rail systems to monorail. Neither is going to happen in yours or my lifetime. Ever, in fact. We will likely migrate directly from the rail systems we have now to molecular dissassociation/reassociation transport, once the necessary breakthrough in fusion energy is made.... ~400 years. Even more likely is the grid will go down for good in ~100 years and bicycle and domestic livestock will be the dominant land transport systems in operation.
If seven people died, anyone would get a lawyer, I would think - to protect their rights. Doesnt mean they are guilty of anything, but at the very least, he will obviously be under the scrutiny of politicians and a big corporation that no doubt has a team of lawyers working the case.
If seven people died, its not unreasonable to think the accident could have been forceful enough to knock the engineer out for a bit or possibly even kill him too.
He obviously knew it was bad, but he couldn't have known that any people had died when he obtained legal counsel. In fact the death toll is up to 8 now and could possibly go higher as there are some very seriously injured people on the brink in hospitals. I think, however, that he has made a huge procedural blunder in that he passed an on site 'wiz quiz', but is later claiming that he is suffering post-concussion syndrome. I expect him to be called on that in days to come.
I don't know why we have these highly educated, highly paid accident investigators....Amtrak should just come here to C-D - obviously there are tons of experts here in this thread that already know everything!
Train was going too fast for curve, derailment, 79 dead. This is a very modern train capable of 160mph and it should be noted the automated signaling systems failed to prevent the disaster. Photo of the same model train that crashed.
That photo and caption need a bit more analysis. (I'm not accusing anyone at this point, but photos can be "doctored" by emerging technology).
"RENFE" on the side of the train is, indeed, the logo of the Spanish national rail system; but the right of way doesn't have the catenary (overhead wiring) for electric operation, which is the power system for the Corridor) and I've never heard of third-rail systems used for HSR.
RENFE had developed its HSR system on the "Talgo" concept first marketed by U S-based American Car and Foundry (ACF) back in the mid-1950's, and first used in Spain. But ACF abandoned that market within a few years. (Amtrak power was built by Sweden's ASEA and Switzerland's Brown Boveri). The cars were, at one time, built by the Budd company in Philadelphia, but I'm not sure about the later models.
Amtrak got its last American-built passenger electric locomotives back in the mid-Seventies. These were built by General Electric, and designated model E-60. They were a refinement of the freight-oriented model E-44, but turned out to handle poorly (vibration produced a "rocking" effect at the higher speeds). Amtrak turned to European builders who had a better concept of the demands of passenger-oriented operation -- as they did with the Acela last time around. No large-scale production of electric locomotives, passenger or freight, has taken place in the U S since that time.
It's another good example of underlying facts being ignored, misconstrued or distorted by somebody with a personal point to sell.
One possibility (and I want to emphasize that it's merely a possibility) is an object thrown, or tied and dangled from an overhead bridge, by local urban savages. It can happen to truckers as well as railroaders.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 05-15-2015 at 09:50 AM..
Why is there no auto pilot for trains?
We have autonomous drones and space craft. Also self driving cars that deal with an unpredictable analog world. Why is it so hard to automate a train that only runs on a track?
GPS would give its location and maps would indicate the speed for the given section of track.
Sure, someone(s) need to watch for hazards and emergency situations, but humans are incapable of the vigilance and long work hours that machines are.
How about a light 500-1000 lb scout locomotive that runs hundreds or thousands of yards ahead of the train and radios back track conditions?
Aircraft and spacecraft operate in 3 dimensions. Of course auto-pilots are a neccessity. A self-driving car hasn't happened yet. It is precisely because a train runs on a track why no one has thought it neccessary to put auto-pilots in them. They have, however, invented all sorts of systems external to the trains to control their movement and emergency braking. There are fully developed automatic braking systems up to and including the PTC system that failed to protect the train in the present incident because it was not activated. You are over-thinking this. Scout locomotives? On the New England Corridor? All the protection a train needs to be reasonably safe on the tracks has already been invented. It just needs to be widely implemented and used consistently.Rail travel is still safer than anything other than planes. The HUGE safety advantage of rail travel over automobile transport works against making trains any safer. It is actually cheaper to settle the inevitable lawsuits after a disaster than to implement the various systems that could make rail travel as safe as or maybe safer than air travel.
New News: Apparently they highly touted "Positive Train Control" system IS installed on the tracks where this crash happened. Problem: It wasn't turned on.
So congressional funding isn't the issue at all. It's too many government bureaucrats.
As usual politicians uses these cases to get more funding, remember they got funding to install these things then why not finish the job and make them work?
I have zero faith in how govt funded public companies operate. They use these opportunities to line people's pockets 1st instead of actually implementing fixes.
All eyes are on the conductor but they have to seriously look into if Audi built the locomotive.
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