Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Alaska installs GPS on all of its locomotives

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:22:16 -0500

. Unit 31, where are you?
Source: Trains
Publication date: 2004-03-01
Arrival time: 2004-03-02

Alaska installs GPS on all of its locomotives

ARR F40 No. 31 and kin now have a GPS-based collision avoidance system,
enabling dispatchers (below) to know where trains are at all times.

It strikes many as strange that no railroad ean pinpoint the exact
location of its trains. An unsignaled railroad knows when a train leaves
a terminal, and when it arrives the other end, but once out and running,
it's as if it's a ship on a vast ocean.
Only by calling a train by radio do you know where trains are. And if
mountains or canyons block the radio signal, or weather or solar
conditions interfere, you might wait some time to find out.

Until recently, little could be done about this other than put manned
stations at regular intervals, each reporting the passage of trains by
telephone, or install a costly (often $ 1 million per mile) signaling
system.  And those localize trains only to within a few miles.

This matters because trains and track maintenance crews and machines
share the same track, and they can-and do-collide. At present, it's
entirely up to the diligence of all employees in charge of trains or
track machines to ensure they have not trespassed into someone else's
space.

The Alaska Railroad, by installing Global Positioning System (GPS)
transceivers on each of its 56 active locomotives and four Budcl RDCs
(sell-propelled passenger cars), becomes the largest U.S. railroad to
begin changing history. Signaling the track isn't economically feasible,
because most of ARRs 470 miles run through wilderness with no commercial
power lines. Nor are solar cells an option, says Andy Schiestl, the
railroad's assistant vice president operating rules, because of the lack
of winter sunlight at its far northern latitude.

Cost per GPS installation is about $250; the railroad plans to equip all
on-track machinery soon. Now, says Schiestl, with a few clicks of a
mouse, an ARR dispatcher can tell you the location of every locomotive
on the railroad-and thus the train to which it's coupled-to within a few
feet.

ARR's goal is to couple GPS into a positive collision-avoidance and
speedeiiforcemenl system. If it works, it will probably never need a
traditional lineside signaling system.

Alaska's pioneering work with GPS is being looked at closely by other
railroads, as is a similar GPS system on the Indiana Rail Road. It
wouldn't be the first time that small railroads have shown the way for
large.

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=47864020&ID=cnniw&scategory=Transportation

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From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:14:31 -0600

>conditions interfere, you might wait some time to find out.
Hmmm ... no author name, and not very accurate - as if "AVL" 
(auto-vehicle locator) like services are a new idea for the the rail 
system. The railroads have been using systems similar to ACARS 
(basically AVL for commerical air carriers) for a long time now - 
systems like ATC, AATC, and ATCS.

http://www.fta.dot.gov/library/technology/attc.html

... for the railfan entusiasts there's software to monitor the digital 
content ...

http://www.atcsmon.com/

-rick

 
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From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 20:54:01 -0500

This comes from www.Trains.com who focus on Model Railroasds and are not
particualy adept of Communications / GPS.

http://www.trains.com

 
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