OT: Muppets

Same here. It's more for R&D when you need something new done to a unit that can only be done at the mfg. We recently had that a lot on a sensor project and every Fedex transit meant at least one day. On days with very blustery weather or storms several days. Nice thing about this train method was that the trains ran no matter what, even when the airport was all frozen over. The drive to the train station could be iffier than anything else but at least that was only a few miles. The town also had heavy electric buses that were quite reliable in snow.

The thread has some 100 posts in it. This sub thread is about the two systems. If you don't wish to be clear, fine. I'm not search in 100 posts for what you say you have written which likely isn't an answer to my question anyway. If you don't wish to discuss it fine.

This is not the issue. The issue is what happens when a detector has a fault. In the US case we have been discussing the fault was a very strange fault that escaped the safeguards to prevent a fault from allowing a train to be missed.

You don't make sense. The US system has had many safeguards. The link you provide above is similar to the US system in what it does, preventing collisions of trains by knowing where they are. The PTC system the US has not completed is an entirely different level of protection which will stop or slow a train when the operator has not done so. Inductive sensing is not about this at all. There are many ways to sense the train and the US system has that. That isn't what PTC is about.

Saying "the system will interlock" doesn't explain it. You laid out an example in detail and you can't explain how it will prevent this type of accident.

They didn't design the plant blindly, they designed the plant to suit their analysis of the hazards. But many errors were made including a misunderstanding of the hazards. The problem we continually repeat is to factor the costs of over designing without fully considering the catastrophic consequences of failing to adequately design.

Works fine for me, it's 100 bux round trip. Are you using a browser from the 21st century?

I don't wish to repeat everything.

But it wasn't turned on.

The system relies on two layers. One is the inductive xfer which is secondary, only applies if human error comes into play. The main system also relies on what theyu call blocks. Train does not show up in expected block at expected time -> alarm -> everything will be stopped on that line. You need to have a double-fault for a crash to happen unless the track isn't equipped with Indusi (there are some).

They still have nasty crashes but those are usually cause by things like equipment failure at high speed.

Understanding would have merely required taking to heart the warnings that the forefathers gave. They didn't go through the extra effort and cost of engraving it in stone for nothing. They obviously wanted these warnings to be visible to our generation and beyond. Yet our generation ignored them.

It was quite obvious here. The backup power generators were not sufficiently protected, 12 of the 13 flooded, consequently could no longer start, thus the emergency cooling system could not function, and then the disaster unfolded.

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Not fake news:

While I couldn't find a direct reference to Fukushima it stands to reason that engineers should have been aware of tsunami risk...

Just need some foresight.

John

Latest and greatest Firefox, updated a few days ago. A good IT department tests their stuff with all common browsers, not just one. In case a browser is too old, too low in market share or otehrwise unsupported they must pop up a meaningful warning and not "Error ID:

I recently had a major bank (!) that obviously tested only with Chrome. Couldn't believe it.

You aren't repeating it to me. You've never written it to me. You simply say I should go digging without even a hint as to where I might find it.

I'm done asking...

More nonsense. You don't know diddly about the US systems. The only improvement to US rail safety in the works is PTC. There are many other safety systems. I"m tired of you ignoring the facts. Discuss this with someone else.

What is the mechanism for everything being stopped on that line? You said they had this system in place decades ago which would have been before modern electronics. Was this a relay based system?

The real point is that the example you gave does not protect against this problem. But you refuse to discuss that. I guess we can give up on this part of the conversation as well.

Lol! "Beyond here monsters lie!" Not much to design a power plant by. You fail to acknowledge they had multiple power plants on the coast. Only this one did not stand up to the tsunami. Just as in earthquakes the degree of vibration depends on many things, with a tsunami the wave height depends on many things.

Yes, that is great hindsight. Now, look at the US power plants and tell me which one will fail catastrophically.

Agree 100%. You could put one on every car and have it jump up and down and bitch if it detected anything dangerous. Maybe *someone* would notice and fix the problem (slow down, in this case). It wouldn't even need positive control, with all the histrionics that entails.

If cars can go autonomous on open highways and compete with real people drivers, controlling a train that's restricted to well known tracks without other moronic drivers seems like kindergarten script-kiddie stuff.

Ah, it's everyone else's fault that you can't ride a train wherever you want to go. Sorry, they don't see it that way.

But it's everyone else's fault that they have no use for your train. I see.

No, that goes for about 1/2 million people around here, many of which regularly join the big trek on I-80 to Silicon Valley. It's not about me, I don't have to travel much. If we as a nation want to encourage more usage of public transport then the method above ain't working.

You don't understand.

There WAS awareness at Fukushima, thus there was a seawall. It just wasn't high enough. There was redundancy, too, but multiple failures. Seismologists didn't know from a century of data that the fault was capable of such a large quake (foresight, we've always known, is not as accurate as hindsight).

There's no sign that learning resistance is the problem with the train crash, either: PTC is mandated, and could have prevented it, if delays hadn't been requested and granted. So, should we learn not to request delays? Not grant them?

It wasn't learning at fault, it was railway do-ers not heeding learners.

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e capital investment, and when it's too cheap to attract much use, use this as evidence that the service should never have been offered. A bit more bo ther and a slightly larger start-up expense and it might have been worth th e trouble.

The trains should have empty seats every trip, in the same way that a telep hone exchange should be sized to have four spare switching circuits at maxi mally busy times, because that means that somebody who wants to make the tr ip/connection when they want to has a 99% chance of finding an empty seat o r a free circuit.

Minimum service is typically one train a day. If it isn't running exactly w hen most commuters want it to, they'll stick with their cars.

um, and complain that the people who get the money don't thrive. The Swedes pay out a bit more - not much more but enough to allow the kids of the pe ople on welfare to do pretty much as well as regular people's kids.

ement that approach badly enough that it doesn't really work, and blame the consequent mess on the approach, rather than the implementation.

Bad implementation is a popular tactic. Trump doesn't seem to know any othe r - but the Republican enthusiasm for "small government" that can get by wh ile not collecting much in the way of taxes from the rich, has generated a lot of under-funded designed-to-fail government initiatives.

Pure bullshit! People buy commuter tickets in advance and so can plan to take the train or not depending on room available, just like airline flights. Phone circuits are much less useful if you can't get a line when you need one. There's no practical way to make reservations for a phone line 90% of the time, you pick up the phone when the call is needed. The added cost of having adequate capacity is minimal.

Besides, none of this is relevant to the point. A bunch of capital is invested with very little in return. It sounded like a good idea, but the reality is that people don't want to take a 2 hour train trip (each way) when they can drive in 70 minutes. I couldn't believe how slow the train was when I used it. The result is that it has never been used adequately and is a major waste of infrastructure.

This route has three trains a day with a *total* ridership of 300 passengers. They didn't make it clear if that was each way or combined. Thinking about it I bet that was combined, so only 150 people using the round trip service. The three engines sit all night idling their engines. Likely that fuel alone is enough to drive them in car pool vans and sooooo much cheaper. But if the government provided that service for the same fare we would consider that to be in competition with commercial buses and "subsidizing" commuters.

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the capital investment, and when it's too cheap to attract much use, use th is as evidence that the service should never have been offered. A bit more bother and a slightly larger start-up expense and it might have been worth the trouble.

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elephone exchange should be sized to have four spare switching circuits at maximally busy times, because that means that somebody who wants to make th e trip/connection when they want to has a 99% chance of finding an empty se at or a free circuit.

When I was young - which is quite a while ago - people did make reservation s for overseas phone calls. People do buy commuter tickets in advance - I bought one year tickets for m ost of the time I was working in Venlo and commuting from Nijmegen, but the y are only part of the traffic catered for.

A very small bunch, from the sound of it, and clearly not enough to cover a service that had any hope of attracting much business.

The route is 50.2 miles long - in more or less a straight line as measured on a highway. Any train that takes 2 hours to cover that distance has to be stoping at every hamlet on the way.

If a train stops at every station, the fact that it can go faster than a ca r (which has to cope with other traffic) gets thrown away. Setting up an ex press train schedule takes more effort and organisation, and clearly nobody bothered.

ly when most commuters want it to, they'll stick with their cars.

That isn't much. European inter-city services tend to one train an hour dur ing the working day, beginning early enough to get you there for the start of the working day, and stopping fairly late to get you home after work.

The engines won't idle their engines overnight. The engines do represent ca pital tied up and eating up interest, but they don't need to be kept runnin g.

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Car pools vans don't have their own private route, and do get stuck in traf fic jams. Anybody who can set up a train link that takes two hours to cover fifty miles has to be either totally incompetent, or designing a scheme th at's guaranteed to fail.

They don't *WANT* rail. You do but blame them because you're not pleased with their decision.

You are talking through your hat. The costs, both operating and startup, were huge compared to the 150 people transported to and from DC each day. There's no way around that. It has just never been cost effective or providing benefits in any other useful manner. Anyone can see express buses would do the job much better and not interfere with the freight rail is best used for transporting.

Again, your hat is doing the talking. You spent zero effort researching the train route. Trains don't run on highways, cars do. Trains have to follow the tracks that were laid 150 years ago.

Theoretical trains might go faster than cars. The parts of this route that parallel highways and afford a view show they run about the same speed as non-rush hour traffic or slower even at full speed. Not every track in the US is rated for high speed service. Remember, railroads are about hauling freight and passenger service is not the priority these days. Passenger service is also expensive compared to other modes.

No reason to have trains in the middle of the day when people aren't going to or coming from work, hence the term, "commuter route".

Of course they do. You just make stuff up when you don't like the facts. They sit idling, engines under an open shelter with the cars in the open maybe a half mile from my house. Each train on a separate siding. Three runs into DC in the morning and three runs out from DC in the afternoon.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4003006,-77.3908012,217m/data=!3m1!1e3

Or facing limitations that you are simply ignorant of. What would you have them change?

Trains don't have "private" routes either. They have to share with other trains including freight which sits and idles while the passenger service ties up miles of rail. Many places have single track which can only be used in one direction at a time.

Not true. Of course not everyone wants rail but a substantial percentage of "super-commuters" does. Their main gripe aside from expensive parking so far was the paltry on-time record which would get them into trouble with work too often. I believe that is because freight trains often get priority.

Bullshit, airline seats are oversold, because some people who pre-purchase tickets don't show.

Also most commuter transport is "walk-up" the most pre-booking you can do is buy a season-pass (valid between dates) or a concession ticket (valid for N rides). Whether you get the 7:55 or the 8:10 train mainly depends on what time you got to the station, and how full the 7:55 was.

yeah that's significant.

trains can be done right.

Seems like something needs to be changed.

well yeah, if you don't have to pay the drivers a decent wage.

Sure they knew. Or should have:

Quote "... 1896 by a giant local tsunami of the highest run-up height of

Learning includes required or prudent safety measures and that is where there was a clear lack of learning. Train accidents are very well documented and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the myriad train wrecks that could have been prevented by external train control.

It's the same with EEs. I should have absolutely no business in medical device design if I would not have thoroughly engrained EN60601 and UL60601 in my brain. University did not teach me that, I did. And no, I did not wait until something happened or until some rule became law. For example, when a company wanted to scale back a design to non-defibrillator-proof level because it was not legally required I told them in no uncertain terms that I would refuse and bow out of the project. So the design was done defibrillator-proof. Only a few months after introduction of the product a cardiologist made the cardinal mistake and applied the paddles without disconnecting our gear. It can happen, unexpected cardiac arrest in a patient can cause somewhat of a panic in younger docs. A SW engineer of the company happened to be there and he wiped the sweat off his forehead.