Here is a post from an old time rail engineer discussing the threats on rail traffic in 2000. It was a response posted on the COMP.YEAR-2000 newsgroup.
> Will Y2k effect the remote switching on railroads?
Well, once again I see the subject of railroad switching has reared it's head here in c.s.y-2k. And I see by the various replies that the old myth of computer controlled switches stopping the railroad system in it's tracks (pun intended) has surfaced again. So once again I'll tackle the Y2K related issues that relate to the railroad industry as seen from someone who works in the industry....
1) Switching.
The old myth about "computer controlled" switches failing to work and therefor stopping trains in there tracks is just that, a myth. While it's true most switches are "power controlled" by a train dispatcher, who can be located hundreds of miles away, the switches themselves don't need a computer or embedded chip to work. Most power control switches in this country are of the "dual control" type. This means that a switch can be thrown remotely "on power" by the train dispatcher from far away or can be "taken off power" and thrown manually ("on hand") by a train crew on the ground. I have often told a train crew to take a power switch off power and "line themselves through the control point". (A control point or "interlocking" is the railroad name for a place where trains can switch from track to track). This happens now a then due to any number of things that would cause the switch to fail. These can be ice and snow in the switch points or just the electric motor that moves the points giving out. Now, before I can tell a train crew to take a switch "on hand" the train must first come to a stop at the stop (red) signal that guards the control point where the switch is located. The dispatcher then gives the train permission to pass the stop signal at "restricted speed" (not exceeding 20 mph....) up to the switch in question. Once the train arrives at the switch the conductor must climb down and take the switch off power and line it by hand. Once this is done the train can proceed over the switch still not exceeding restricted speed until the rear end has cleared the switch. The switch can be restored to power once the train starts over it as the "shunt" caused by the train will not allow the dispatch to throw the switch until the train has cleared the control point.
Now the problem in all this is that instead to traveling through the control point at 45 MPH (normal speed through a switch from one track to another) the train must stop and line the switches by hand which take considerably longer and tends to slowup the whole railroad line. Ok, now we have established the fact that railroad switches can be thrown by hand...before Brad or Don begin jumping up and down screaming "I told you there's no problem" lets look at a couple of other concerns I have in relation to Y2K and the railroad industry.....
2) Fuel.
It takes a LOT of diesel fuel to move a 17000 ton coal train from the mines in Wyoming to a power plant halfway across the country......... The railroads are the largest private user of Diesel fuel in the United States with the largest railroad, the Union Pacific, being the number one largest user. The second largest railroad, the BNSF is probably number two with the three eastern railroads (Conrail, Norfolk Southern and CSX probably rounding out the top five. The large regional railroads like Montana Rail Link, KCS, Illinois Central (to name a few) probably fall between number 6 and number 15.
The question here is whether or not the oil companies will be ready and will the supply of oil be effected. Will the pipelines continue to flow and will the super tankers continue to make deliveries. Will there be more "Chevrons" and what effect will this have on the delivery of diesel fuel to the railroads....
Oh, and BTW, someone suggested that maybe we should go back to steam locomotives if oil is a problem. I'll try not to laugh too hard at that one......
3) Utilities and electricity.
A continuous flow of electric power is needed by the railroad to control switches, signals and radio systems. Sure switches, as I pointed out above, can be thrown by hand...but if all of them have to be thrown by hand, either on a regional bases or perhaps even a system wide bases it will slow things to a crawl or even a stop. And remember, in order to tell a train crew to take a switch off power the train dispatcher must be able to talk to them on the radio...radio bases need power to work. Signals, switches and radio bases with no power means no trains will run. It's also very hard to fuel locomotives at fueling racks if the pumps have no power. Sure the railroads have some generators to throw around and, yes, in certain cases locomotives can be used to provide electric power to control points, radio bases and fuel pumps...but the system could not be run at the level (capacity) that it's being run at now....and I'm just talking about coal trains, forget everything else.
3) Telecommunications...
Most railroads at one time had their own phone and data systems. These systems have mostly been replaced by leased lines from the major telecom's such as Sprint, AT&T or MCI. Commands send by the train dispatcher pertaining to switches and signals as well as voice transmissions to radio bases are sent over such systems. Voice and data transmission is critical to running a railroad today. Will the telecom's be ready?? (BTW - Sprint got it's start as the internal telephone system on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The first three letters in the name Sprint stood for Southern Pacific Railroad.)
How did we ever get by without computers?
Huge amounts of manpower
> I guess those pictures of trains from the 19th century are > part of some conspiracy by Pollyanas.
I suppose you think the railroads still use steam locomotives,communicate using telegraph and have manned switch towers at each rail junction. Back in the 19th century they did all of the above and more without computers. But times have changed, the railroads today are heavily into computers....let me give you a few examples....
1) Motive power (locomotives) There are basically two types of locomotives in use today on Americas railroads. I've divided locomotives into two the groups for the benefit of the readers of c.s.y-2
A) Dumb locomotives These are locomotives were mostly built in the 50's, 60's and 70's. You start them up, yank on the throttle and the train begins to move....nothing hi-tech about it and no computers involved.
B) Smart locomotives These locomotives were built in the 80's and 90's and all of them have micro-processors on board. You start them up, yank on the throttle and the train starts to move. This is where it gets different. The on board computer using a small radar unit that looks down at the tracks determines how fast the train is moving, the grade (incline) the train is on and where or not any of the locomotives wheels are slipping. If one of the wheels is slipping the computer reduces power to that wheel while continuing to apply full power to all other wheels. On older "dumb" locomotives the engineer only got a "wheel slip" alarm which forced him to reduce power to all wheels of the locomotive. This often caused trains to stall on grades (hills) or forced the railroad to use more locomotives than were needed for other flat parts of the railroad. This is why it take two of the new high tech locomotives to replace three or four of the older dumb locomotives. Improved fuel economy and lower emissions are two other results of the high tech locomotives. The on board computers also keeps track of various locomotive sub systems and when they must be serviced or inspected (FRA). This is where the date issue comes into play. It will be interesting to see how many of these new high tech locomotives have problems after 01-01-00.
2) Control systems In the old days the movement and dispatching of trains was very much different than it is today. At each junction and crossover location a manned tower stood. In this tower a man using levers connected to rods and pulleys lined switches and cleared signals. This was all done under the instruction of the train dispatcher through telegraph and later telephones. Nowadays the old tower has been torn down and replaced with a brown or silver track side box filled with relays and micro processors. The boxes are linked to the dispatcher (sometimes hundreds of miles away) by telephone circuits, radio links or sometimes even satellites. At the dispatchers end is a computer work station showing his railroad territory on a video screen in front of him. Everything the dispatcher does is recorded (FRA requirement) and is time and date stamped. I have seen one of these logs printed out and it showed the date in the standard MM/DD/YY format. Anyone of these systems from the field locations to the dispatchers work station computer can be effected by the Y2K problem. Keep in mind that all of the above needs power and communications systems that are up and running for everything to work. Both these things are generally out of the railroads hands.
Now some people at this point would say that the trains could still keep running even if the power was out and there was on way to contact the dispatchers. While this is true to a certain extent there are some major problems...
Many lines are single track lines. The dispatcher using signals or TWC (non signaled railroad lines) rules via radio keeps the traffic flowing (well most of the time). Without a central authority (dispatcher) to keep everything running nothing would move. Engineers would not move a train an inch on fear of meeting another train head-on (corn field meet) somewhere. Going to a timetable system or token system would take weeks or months to implement and would greatly reduce capacity of an already overloaded railroad system.
3) Safety At one time the above mentioned "man in the tower" kept an eye on all passing trains for any defects that might cause a derailment. This was in addition to the conductor riding in the caboose on the rear of the train. Now that the towers and cabooses are all gone the railroads have installed track side defect scanners. These scanners are either linked to a radio that directly warns the train crew or tied into the dispatchers computer to give him a warning of a train defect. Once again this is all dependent of power and communications systems being up and running. Without these track side defect scanners working the railroad would have many more derailments and wrecks.
4) Car and shipment tracking. At one time there were hundreds if not thousands of clerks who's job it was to keep track of where railroad cars were and on what train they were on. Today these clerks are all gone having been replaced by track side scanners that "read" magnetic tags on each car. This information is feed directly by telephone lines to the railroads central computer. Not knowing where various shipments and cars were at anyone time would cause major problems....(some people say the UPRR does this all the time even with computers.....)
One thing not directly related to the railroads computers are of course the employees of the railroads. If the Y2K problem causes major problems in food distribution, energy and communications the railroads won't be running either. Railroad employees need food to eat, gas for their cars to get to the railroad and a reliable way of getting train movement instructions. Also lets not forget that massive amounts of diesel fuel is needed to run all those trains. A Y2K problem in the oil industry could cause shortages of diesel fuel. If the Y2K computer date problem is as bad as everyone says it is then the railroads will have major problems as well.
> Severely impacted schedules, perhaps. Complete shutdown, no.
Oh, and BTW, while I'm not a code writer, computer head or geek I DO work for a major railroad and know the majorroll computers play in today's railroads. Saying today's railroadscould continue to operate if the Y2K bug crashed all their computers is nonsense. That would be like saying the airlines could continue to fly if the air traffic system crashed....just use VFR's at all times, right??
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