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Re: Metrolink derailment in Oxnard.
Author: BOB2
Date: 02-25-2015 - 21:11
It ain't that bad Zark....
And, it doesn't matter anyhow, as we're taking humans out of the loop more and more on systems like this. And, the DSRC electronic communications technologies to the on-board computer in the locomotive will do it all for you, more reliably and safely...... since you're right, we could actually miss it.
You just have to imagine a world where our rail technology is actually almost as smart as your new flat screen TV? That's not, of course, the railroad world you and I grew up in, in the days of the wooden axle, but that's the one that's coming....
I wouldn't even bother with technology like loops. Loops are obsolete and expensive to maintain, and even though these can still detect then magnetic fluctuations cause in the current flow by a large car or truck made of steel at a traffic signal or stuck on a crossing today, as well as these could detect a steel German U-boat in 1942.
I would use cheap, reliable, easy to maintain visual detection technologies, and recognition programming, that we're using increasingly in our highway detection systems. This technology has now become way cheaper, faster, more reliable, more versatile, and just plain better for many applications like this.
Then, during the transition, over the next twenty years, to fully automated vehicles, we will be able to detect if any of the older vehicles, still equipped with "chimpbrain" based "operating systems" have managed to "guide" themselves around the gates and signals and onto the tracks, and into the path of an oncoming train.
After that, in the world of the google car, the vehicle will just take its commands from the signals and it will refuse to obey the "chimpbrain" commands to override the program, and do something that incredibly stupid.
And, it doesn't matter anyhow, as we're taking humans out of the loop more and more on systems like this. And, the DSRC electronic communications technologies to the on-board computer in the locomotive will do it all for you, more reliably and safely...... since you're right, we could actually miss it.
You just have to imagine a world where our rail technology is actually almost as smart as your new flat screen TV? That's not, of course, the railroad world you and I grew up in, in the days of the wooden axle, but that's the one that's coming....
I wouldn't even bother with technology like loops. Loops are obsolete and expensive to maintain, and even though these can still detect then magnetic fluctuations cause in the current flow by a large car or truck made of steel at a traffic signal or stuck on a crossing today, as well as these could detect a steel German U-boat in 1942.
I would use cheap, reliable, easy to maintain visual detection technologies, and recognition programming, that we're using increasingly in our highway detection systems. This technology has now become way cheaper, faster, more reliable, more versatile, and just plain better for many applications like this.
Then, during the transition, over the next twenty years, to fully automated vehicles, we will be able to detect if any of the older vehicles, still equipped with "chimpbrain" based "operating systems" have managed to "guide" themselves around the gates and signals and onto the tracks, and into the path of an oncoming train.
After that, in the world of the google car, the vehicle will just take its commands from the signals and it will refuse to obey the "chimpbrain" commands to override the program, and do something that incredibly stupid.
