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bewdley (2 posts)
Aug-11-01, 07:40 AM (EST) "Exceeding Speed Limit" In MSTS, the evaluation of a run indicates speed limit violations -- where, when, top speed, for how long.What happens in real life when an engineer exceeds the speed limit? Who is any the wiser -- are there 'radar traps'? Under what circumstances is disciplinary action taken against an engineer caught speeding? Do any trains produce a physical record of the trip, e.g. a paper graph? Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Exceeding Speed Limit Tepic Aug-11-01 1 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit EMDMac70 Aug-11-01 2 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit cjmaclean Aug-11-01 3 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit EMDMac70 Aug-11-01 4 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit CactusBoy Aug-12-01 5 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit Walt Aug-12-01 6 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit woeper Aug-12-01 7 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit cjmaclean Aug-12-01 8 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit woeper Aug-13-01 9 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit cjmaclean Aug-13-01 10 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit Tepic Aug-13-01 11 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit jessep Aug-13-01 12 RE: Exceeding Speed Limit slrsafety1 Aug-13-01 13

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Tepic (19 posts)
Aug-11-01, 09:07 AM (EST) 1. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit"
>What happens in real life when
>an engineer exceeds the speed
>limit? Who is any the
>wiser -- are there 'radar
>traps'? Under what circumstances is
>disciplinary action taken against an
>engineer caught speeding? Do any
>trains produce a physical record
>of the trip, e.g. a
>paper graph? I can give you a rough idea of what happens in the UK.All new trains have OTMR's (black boxes) which record lots of things, including speed. These are downloaded at rendom and when there is an incident. Some unfortunate Drivers work for companies who download them reguarly to catch people out.There are also speed traps with radar guns (just like the police.) These are operated by both the Drivers railway company and Railtrack, the company that owns all the track in the UK.If you are caught speeding, what happens depends on how fast. Normally 1 or 2 MPH over will be ignored, speedometers can loose calibration. There is a set percentage that is acceptable, but I cannot remember what it is.If you are going faster you will get penailty points on your record, and too many points mean dismissal. If you are really going at it (the guy on the forum doing 400+ in his go-faster express) you will be dismissed, and probably prosicuted.One thing I read in the manual that made me smile was about speeds. The manual said something like "A good engineer always drives slower than the limit." When I was out with my instructor, he would often ask how fast I was going, I'd say 72 or 73 and he'd tell me to get a move on. It's 75mph here, so do 75! My employer starts to ask questions if you are more than one minute late at any point on your journey.
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EMDMac70 (27 posts)
Aug-11-01, 02:06 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" I work for CSX. They download the event recorders on a daily basis trying to find any mistake that you have made so you will be punished for it, no joke. I hate to go to work because I think about it all the time. We just had an engineer just about 3 weeks ago get fired from speeding. He had a 14,000 ton train and was going down hill and he had started into a faster speed limit zone but the rear of his train was still in a slower limit zone. The road forman stood at the speed limit sign and kept radaring his train until the rear went by.well believe it or not with that much weight, going down hill you are going to pick up speed and guess what? You guessed it his rear 20 cars got going to fast in the slower speed limit and they pulled him out of service for a minimum of 90 days without pay. They download are engines to see if we speed or if we are blowing the horn 1320 feet before a crossing or if we have to many engines on line as to burn more fuel than needed. Man we are all human and are subject to a few mistakes in life. They are not even trying to save lives here, hell they arn't even making the company anymore money either. Right now we have 5 engineers pulled out of service for excesive speed. The thing about it is they cant pull you aside and say hey you screwed up your human what can we do about this, they just take food off your table and go on looking for the next low life scumbag engineer who deliberatly violates all rules, well maybe one rule. They never take into consideration of the junk eqipment they give us to work with or that we have been awake for 30 hours or anything like that. I just wonder when some one will go postal. Mark my word it will happen. The company is trying to fire as many people as they can so they dont have to have a big lay off for the slowing economy. I have never saw so many people out of service at one time. A few weeks ago one road forman had a man cornered snd kept poking his finger in the guys chest and the guy said stop that will be the last time you touch me, but the road forman did it again so he hit him knocking him to the ground. They fired the the guy but the road forman is still working. Csx has conferance calls every morning for supervisors and they talk to each other just down right ugly. saying everything is Bull sh_ t and saying they dont give a fu_ _ you will get those cars switched or you son of a bit_ h I dont give a shi_ just get it done or Ive heard one time "gawd d_mmit you are going to get fired if you dont get those trains moving" So guess what? One trainmaster in the last week said you are not going to keep talking to me that way so J. Deyr a csx senior fired him on the spot. Well enough of all this malarky lets run some trains on MSTS where it really is fun! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
cjmaclean (130 posts)
Aug-11-01, 07:14 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" About EMD's story on, well, "personnel policy", if I were you, I would jump off day before yesterday and look for a new job in a company where employees are not bullied in that way!!! I have experienced something similar at a place where I worked once, and I can tell you it is no fun when you enter the room unaware and suddenly find yourself being accused of something you did not even know about (and were not at all responsible for) by an incompetent and dearly misplaced supervisor.Well, actually I wanted to know something different. When you do exceed the current speed limit on a train, from how many percent approximately above maximum are you running the risk of derailing? I guess it does not happen already when you're faster than allowed by only 1-2 mph, does it...????
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EMDMac70 (27 posts)
Aug-11-01, 11:09 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" No most derailments dont come from one or two miles an hour over the speed limit. You might have some trouble in some curves if you have overloaded cars though, but you would most likely have to be going 15 or 20 mph over to have much problems. I have been told of a lot of "war" stories about speed and what not, and they never derailed. I would say on strait track that was in great shape it could handle what ever you could give it 3,4, 500 mph ect. The ruling for speed limit speeding by the FRA is 10mph max or 50% of the posted speed limit. so in shops where speed limit is 5mph 8 mph would have you pulled out of service and if that happens twice within two years your butt is out of a job for good. If the truth is known most derailments are caused from faulty equipment or running through switches and then backing back through them. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
CactusBoy (79 posts)
Aug-12-01, 02:52 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" believe it or not, there's a few prototypical (rl) railroads that don't have speed limits. I know one of them personally. This railroad, commonly known as the Hartwell railroad is based in something well...strange to say the least.There's no signals, no blocks, no yard limits...NOTHING.And yet, this railroad is nearly sixty miles long; connects with CSX on one end and NS on the other. How do they deal with speed? Well honestly, I was told that they have no speed other than what you can milk out of their engines. Which isn't saying much since one...an old mechanical drive type (mech controls actually) has "Scrapped Do Not Refil" painted in big white letters on the side of the fuel tank.still, there's no speed limit, and no real penalty. Considering those locos can barely do 40, it's a moot point.A more local one, is the georgia central. This railroad, (owned by CSX but non union) doesn't use blocking systems either. Though, I suspect they do have CTC or radio control given some of the stuff i've seen. But, interestingly enough they followed southern's suit and run their engines long hood front. Neat when you see it in practice. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Walt (95 posts)
Aug-12-01, 09:59 AM (EST) 6. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" A system of timed signal lights is used in many US subway systems. I know from first-hand observation that it has been used in New York City and Philadelphia subways at least since the 1930s, and probably much longer. It works like this: As a train approaches the speed zone there is a row of fairly closely spaced block signals. The first signal will be yellow, and the rest red. When the train passes the first signal it starts a timer, and after an appropriate number of seconds the next signal changes from red to yellow. Each signal works this way in turn. If a train goes through the block too fast and passes a red signal before it changes a trackside trip triggers the emergency brakes, and the train stops until the brakes reset. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
woeper (13 posts)
Aug-12-01, 03:07 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" In the Netherlands, when you go faster then the speedlimit, the blackbox in the train give you a warning signal, then you have a specified time to react. When you don't brake the train will activate the brakes by himself and bring you to stop.But this will only work by speeds of 40 km/h or above.
You can continuing your journey afterthat but the blackbox makes a record of that.In Germany is a simulair system but there is 1 km/h already the limit. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
cjmaclean (130 posts)
Aug-12-01, 04:04 PM (EST) 8. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" In Germany, all major locomotives are equipped with the "InduSi" (Induktive Sicherungsanlage; roughly translated as "inductive safeguard"). I have just looked up how it is supposed to work:When passing a "Vorsignal" (roughly "announcer signal") which is set to "approach" (indicating the main signal is red), InduSi automatically triggers the brakes if the engineman has not already applied the brakes himself until four seconds after passing the signal.
However, even if the engineman has applied the train brakes in time, InduSi is still monitoring the train speed. If it is still above 95 km/h twenty seconds after passing the signal, the system automatically slams the brakes to full application.
Two hundred meters before passing the "main signal" ("Hauptsignal" in German), train speed is checked a second time. If it is still above 65 km/h at this point, the brakes are set to full as well, if that has not already been done before.There is also another system directly connected with InduSi. When the engineer passes a "Vorsignal", he has about five seconds to push a button on his dashboard to tell the system he has seen and acknowledged the signal. If he does not do that, InduSi comes into effect.The third system on German locos is the "Sifa" (Sicherheitsfahrschaltung, similar to the U.S. "alerter"). Here the engineman needs to keep a button or pedal depressed continuously, but has to release it briefly every thirty seconds or so. If he doesn't (maybe because he has collapsed on the spot), first either a loud siren screams the heck out of him or a computer voice is blaring "SIFA!!!!!!!!" to try and wake him up. If he does not react immediately then, the traction motors are shut down, and the brakes put to full emergency.
I hope my information on all those weird systems was correct !
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woeper (13 posts)
Aug-13-01, 11:50 AM (EST) 9. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" cjmaclean,Your almost right, but the SIFA system needs like the alerter to push down a pedal. To give the system the signal that the driver is not a sleep or having other troubles.But your right about calling SIFA --- SIFA --- SIFA.There are in the newest loco's alot more shoutings by the system of the loc, STORUNG (engine failure) and more of that callings.Joop Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
cjmaclean (130 posts)
Aug-13-01, 01:10 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" Well, as long as the synthetic voice does not say something like "photon torpedoes armed"... About those systems keeping an eye on the engineman, I have read about one new device several times which is supposed to monitor the driver's (or pilot, engineman, whatever you want) eye movements to determine if he is still awake "enough" or on the verge of passing out. I guess it would make much sense to install systems like these on a locomotive as soon as they are rid of their initial bugs.
Or how about a voice-command interface? What do you all think, might that make sense on a train, too?I already hear the engineer saying, "Warp nine, engage!"
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Tepic (19 posts)
Aug-13-01, 04:17 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" My employer would like those! I had a 9 hour turn today, starting at 6am. I was driving for 8 and a half hours.To make things worse, the system that alerts me to restrictive signals was going over the top, as I was following a slower train. "Clickty-Clack" with the occasional Horn is mesmorising! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jessep (12 posts)
Aug-13-01, 04:28 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" On Union Pacific lines, each train has an event recorder, kinda like a black box on an airplane, except it doesn't record the crew's voice. It records vital stats about different systems on the train, including speed. If an engineer runs just two or three miles an hour over the limit for a few seconds, and there is no accident, no action will probably be taken. However, if an engineer intentionally runs even a few miles an hour over the limit for say, 30 miles, he will most have some action taken against him. If the engineer is exceeding the speed limit and an accident occurs, it is a pretty sure bet that he will be out of a job. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
slrsafety1 (1 posts)
Aug-13-01, 06:19 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Exceeding Speed Limit" In the US it's a FEDERAL violation to exceed the speed by 10 MPH or more, with specific penalties specified in the regulations. It's one of the things that came with engineer certification. Most Company Policies, however, are much less tolerant. Speeding can't be allowed because of the liability concerns. Track speeds are dictated, in part, by the Track Safety Standards specified in the Code of Federal Regulations, and appropriate speed restrictions placed by qualified foremen to accomodate track defects, not all of which can be felt from the locomotive cab.Most roads routinely download event recorders to comply with Federal requirements to check each engineer at least once each year, and always following any type accident. One of the reasons is that lawyers know the things exist, and they are one of the first pieces of evidence subpoenaed for the inevitable lawsuit, and any non-compliance can sufficiently muddy the waters to sway a judgement against the railway...Same thing with using radar. Railways are required to do regular random compliance checks, and that's just one of the ways that they are done.
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