The railroad industry does not conjure up high-technology images for most people, but it takes a lot more to keep the trains running on schedule these days than a few guys shoveling coal into a furnace.
It only stands to reason that technology plays a major role in keeping things operational for an industry trusted with moving people and cargo across the United States. If something goes wrong with a train while it is in transit, the best-case scenario can be a slight delay. The worst-case scenario is an incident that could be damaging to both the railroad and its customers.
Many railroads operate a series of sensors and audio devices spaced about 20 to 40 miles apart along their tracks to monitor wheel heat and bearing sounds -- great indicators of possible wheel failures that can lead to disaster. The railroad can send these signals back to a datacenter via a network of fiber optic cables that run along the tracks. Systems in the datacenters crunch the sensor data to determine if a wheel is on the verge of failure and to take any necessary action.
The big problem is that a lot can happen between far-flung sensors and between the sensors and the datacenter. Some data-blind spots could be addressed with more sophisticated real-time data collection systems.
There are two main obstacles to real-time monitoring of connected devices on a railroad. The first is battery life; there just isn't enough of it right now to make real-time, always-on wireless sensors worth the investment. But with constant improvement in battery technology, it's just a matter of time before that mountain becomes a molehill.
Railroads also face an obstacle in connecting sensors. Most systems rely on a series of sensors mounted great distances from one another on the side of the track. The railroad gets an intermittent snapshot of what the wheels and bearings are doing as the trains pass by each sensor. A wireless sensor positioned on the actual wheel would be a more effective solution, allowing the railroad to monitor the wheels continuously and to report instantly when a wheel or bearing is in danger of failure.
There is another challenge: Assuming the railroads could get wireless sensors in place on every wheel, they would then need to focus on getting all that sensor data back to the datacenter. One option would be for the railroads to build their own wireless networks to gather sensor data continuously along the tracks, using fiber networks to backhaul signals to datacenters. But this presents some additional issues, since not all tracks are owned by the same railroad company. It is common, for instance, for a train from one company to travel on tracks from others. Multiple companies would have to work together to share data from their networks.
Problems with implementing the Internet of Things are not unique to railroads. Still, the railroads are in a slightly more advantageous position, since they already have part of the necessary infrastructure in place. If the railroads jump on this opportunity, they could inspire other industries to follow.
Thanks for sharing that story. Today's technologies will certainly make railroads safer and more reliable. However, every human endeavour is subject to errors. So we better watch out.
"If autonomous cars catch on and start talking to each other, then UPS trucks and other service vehicles could really create some incredible wireless infrastructure."
No doubt autonomous cars are already here and they will hit our roads very soon. And they will surely have to talk (and connect) to many devices for a smooth running.
Autonomous cars might beat trains... It might be easier to convince consumers that the value of all the sensors in a self-driving car is worth the investment, rather than getting a large company to bet on building up all the infrastructure themselves.
If autonomous cars catch on and start talking to each other, then UPS trucks and other service vehicles could really create some incredible wireless infrastructure.
I am glad to hear that Pete made it out alive to tell this story. and it really highlights an area where technology and safty can really come together and make things better. But, it also highlights where technology that was put in place failed to do its job and keep Pete safe.
I think they added some new rules and regulations that made it harder for the employees to do their jobs; not sure if they actually improved the equipment or its maintenance.
I'm really glad Pete made it to the end of that journey okay, too! It's a MUCH better story when he tells it...I sit and listen, enthralled, any time I can convince him to relate it one more time!
As a kid we'd train hop and ended up far from home sometimes. One thing we realized early on was that doing this in winter is not a good idea, and doing it during rain/lightening/thunder is absolutely terrifying. Glad to hear Pete made it to the end of the journey okay, and hope they did something to correct the probelem
Great piece Dana - maybe I missed it but as you point out here, many cargo runs are thru rural areas, areas that have long since been on the lagging end of technology updates. I wonder if the current state of affairs will bring high speed to these areas before cable is willing to offer it. Seems possible.
My cousin retired a couple of years ago after a long career with conrail. At one point the failure of some electronics, combined with multiple procedural failures, led him to be awarded the nickname Popsicle Pete.
As I recall the story, he had stepped off the train to check on an apparent bad sensor, or maybe a problem with the on-train wired communication system, at a point when the train was supposed to be maintaining a slow speed for a while. But as he watched the train started to speed up. He tried to contact the engineer with his portable radio but the battery had failed, so he had to hop on before that became too dangerous. Unfortunately, that put him on a nearly empty flatcar, and the on-train communications weren't working either. He had to sit back out of the wind and hope that he wouldn't freeze to death before they reached the yard. The rest of the crew had concluded that he must not have gotten back onto the train, so they just kept going for 30 or 40 miles, and only when the train was slowing for arrival was Peter able to get off and wave someone down! This happened in Minnesota, in the middle of winter, so the freezing to death was a real possibility not a figure of speech...
I hope the railroad systems are a bit more robust today, but it seems we (the USA) don't spend money on our own infrastructure if we can use that money to destroy someone else's...I hope I'm wrong about that part. Just thought I'd share this personal story with the Interenet Evolution folks ;)
RFID is a great technology and new uses are popping up all the time for it. In what ways do you think it will reshape your cities and where do you see the most impacing being?
I get the feeling that the innovation thru the Internet of Things is a relatively inexpensive project when compared to the maintainence and replacement of existing stock, in addition to the expansion and replacement of existing lines. I constantly hear of railway systems in foreign lands that make ours look like a vintage children's toy and yet there seems little incentive to get things back on track.
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When it comes to broadband development, the US is not exactly a superstar, ranking 23rd out of 57 countries, according to the research firm Strategy Analytics. Even when you take into account the unique geographic challenges compared with many of the other nations on the firm's list, it's easy to see there are still many areas where the US is deficient.
Just before 9:00 a.m. on May 22, the official Google blog announced the completion of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The closing of the deal was all but a formality once the US and the EU regulators gave the deal a wink and a nod back in February. Still, it represents the joining of a major Internet player with a major player from the device world -- although whether anything truly new will result has yet to be seen.
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New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
The bring-your-own-device approach isn’t suited to monitoring of enterprise equipment and processes. In these cases, it is up to IT to come forward with gear suited to the task.
Advances in robotics and Internet bandwidth speed mean that low-wage foreign workers may soon be remotely controlling worker robots in the US and Europe. Companies like VGo, iRobots, and Willow Garage sell robots that may enable workers in India to produce cars in the US.
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The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
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