 |
Incompetent FRA safety specialist on air brakes
Author: SP5103
Date: 06-20-2014 - 12:07
Here is the link for the article: LINK CLICK
First ignore the obvious progressive/liberal/treehugger/NIMBY slant and source of the article. What caught my attention and I found disturbing was the following quote:
(Begin article quote)
“19th Century Technology”
The heading on the first slide of CSX’s presentation for OIRA stated, “ECPbrakes are expensive and do not offer material safety advantages.”
ECP is industry shorthand for Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes, currently considered the best available brakes in the business.
At a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing in April, Richard Connor, safety specialist for DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), gave a presentation comparing the conventional air brake system used on most freight trains to the ECP brakes passed over by CSX.
“I’m not sure with the audience if you all understand how the current air brake systems on our freight trains out there operate today, but it’s basically 19th century technology,” said Connor.
Connor also described the performance of the brakes in an emergency situation as “painfully slow” in comparing ECP’s response time to that of the conventional braking system.
“One of the biggest advantages of ECP is that signal to apply your brakes…is going at the speed of light…it’s a much quicker signal,” he said.
Connor also discussed how ECP would “offer material safety advantages” over current technology in an oil train accident, even if expensive.
“For the purpose of why we would want ECP on, say, a unit train like these oil trains, [it’s] to reduce the impact of a derailment or reduce the damages caused by a derailment of these types of trains,” explained Connor.
“[The purpose] is you get a much quicker application, you reduce that kinetic energy involved with that train.”
(End article quote)
Who is obvious career bureaucratic "but I know more than you because I have a college degree and work for the government" idiot?
If a train's brakes go into emergency, intentionally or unintentionally, the engineer for the most part loses all control of the train. You can dig your feet into the floor, or hang onto the horn, or hopefully not consider having to duck or jump - but you are just along for the ride until everything hopefully stops without something worse happening. And if there really is an emergency, the amount of time to get the train stopped is forever and sometimes the stopping distance is too far.
It might be an advantage to bail off the brakes, you might get to keep the dynamics, and a few railroads delayed the PCS trip for a few seconds under some conditions so you might be able to outrun the rear end after a break-in-two. But the reality is assuming something really bad isn't already happening you are waiting for that huge kick or jerk to tell you that the train's slack is violently changing and you may end up piling everything up regardless.
Once an emergency brake pipe application is initiated, it moves through the train at several hundred miles an hour - I don't remember the exact number off the top of my head. So yes, it will take a few seconds on a long train, and properly working ECP should be a little faster. There is a very specific and intentional time delay built into car brake control valves responding to an emergency on how fast the brake cylinder pressure increases. Since the AB, when the emergency brake application takes control of the train from the engineer this specific delay is the best attempt to control the slack and prevent a violent change from derailing the train. So is the ECP computer going to be able to realistically control the slack in an emergency and instantaneously apply brake cylinder pressure at a higher rate?
I wonder if Connor has any real locomotive engineer experience beyond pushing Thomas the Train across the floor as a kid. True, many of today's trains use the same cars, or articulated cars so there isn't as much free slack, but there are also unit trains of equipment with end of car cushioning units (military equipment flats, auto racks and UP's "Super Fruit") that can make things interesting. Not to mention that today's manifest consists are a @#$%&'s brew of short, medium and long cars, empty and loaded cars indiscriminately mixed together, a mixture of single capacity and empty load brakes not to mention a big slug of loads on the rear to keep the DPUs from jackknifing the train.
I know a computer can think faster than me, but can it input enough of the variables to keep a train on the track. Let me know when Mr. Software Silicon can see, hear and feel what his train is doing.
Ranting suspended ...
Gotta love computers - when I previewed this rant I saw some cuss marks that I didn't recall typing - I'm not that crazy .. yet. It seems that the computer decided to replace "@#$%&'s brew" for "@#$%&'s brew" that I typed (yeah I know it probably should have been capitalized). And we want to trust a computer to run our trains? I wonder how this will actually post?
Previewed it again and it is still changing it. Evidently I am not allowed to spell @#$%& with a small d.
First ignore the obvious progressive/liberal/treehugger/NIMBY slant and source of the article. What caught my attention and I found disturbing was the following quote:
(Begin article quote)
“19th Century Technology”
The heading on the first slide of CSX’s presentation for OIRA stated, “ECPbrakes are expensive and do not offer material safety advantages.”
ECP is industry shorthand for Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes, currently considered the best available brakes in the business.
At a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing in April, Richard Connor, safety specialist for DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), gave a presentation comparing the conventional air brake system used on most freight trains to the ECP brakes passed over by CSX.
“I’m not sure with the audience if you all understand how the current air brake systems on our freight trains out there operate today, but it’s basically 19th century technology,” said Connor.
Connor also described the performance of the brakes in an emergency situation as “painfully slow” in comparing ECP’s response time to that of the conventional braking system.
“One of the biggest advantages of ECP is that signal to apply your brakes…is going at the speed of light…it’s a much quicker signal,” he said.
Connor also discussed how ECP would “offer material safety advantages” over current technology in an oil train accident, even if expensive.
“For the purpose of why we would want ECP on, say, a unit train like these oil trains, [it’s] to reduce the impact of a derailment or reduce the damages caused by a derailment of these types of trains,” explained Connor.
“[The purpose] is you get a much quicker application, you reduce that kinetic energy involved with that train.”
(End article quote)
Who is obvious career bureaucratic "but I know more than you because I have a college degree and work for the government" idiot?
If a train's brakes go into emergency, intentionally or unintentionally, the engineer for the most part loses all control of the train. You can dig your feet into the floor, or hang onto the horn, or hopefully not consider having to duck or jump - but you are just along for the ride until everything hopefully stops without something worse happening. And if there really is an emergency, the amount of time to get the train stopped is forever and sometimes the stopping distance is too far.
It might be an advantage to bail off the brakes, you might get to keep the dynamics, and a few railroads delayed the PCS trip for a few seconds under some conditions so you might be able to outrun the rear end after a break-in-two. But the reality is assuming something really bad isn't already happening you are waiting for that huge kick or jerk to tell you that the train's slack is violently changing and you may end up piling everything up regardless.
Once an emergency brake pipe application is initiated, it moves through the train at several hundred miles an hour - I don't remember the exact number off the top of my head. So yes, it will take a few seconds on a long train, and properly working ECP should be a little faster. There is a very specific and intentional time delay built into car brake control valves responding to an emergency on how fast the brake cylinder pressure increases. Since the AB, when the emergency brake application takes control of the train from the engineer this specific delay is the best attempt to control the slack and prevent a violent change from derailing the train. So is the ECP computer going to be able to realistically control the slack in an emergency and instantaneously apply brake cylinder pressure at a higher rate?
I wonder if Connor has any real locomotive engineer experience beyond pushing Thomas the Train across the floor as a kid. True, many of today's trains use the same cars, or articulated cars so there isn't as much free slack, but there are also unit trains of equipment with end of car cushioning units (military equipment flats, auto racks and UP's "Super Fruit") that can make things interesting. Not to mention that today's manifest consists are a @#$%&'s brew of short, medium and long cars, empty and loaded cars indiscriminately mixed together, a mixture of single capacity and empty load brakes not to mention a big slug of loads on the rear to keep the DPUs from jackknifing the train.
I know a computer can think faster than me, but can it input enough of the variables to keep a train on the track. Let me know when Mr. Software Silicon can see, hear and feel what his train is doing.
Ranting suspended ...
Gotta love computers - when I previewed this rant I saw some cuss marks that I didn't recall typing - I'm not that crazy .. yet. It seems that the computer decided to replace "@#$%&'s brew" for "@#$%&'s brew" that I typed (yeah I know it probably should have been capitalized). And we want to trust a computer to run our trains? I wonder how this will actually post?
Previewed it again and it is still changing it. Evidently I am not allowed to spell @#$%& with a small d.
Incompetent FRA safety specialist on air brakes