Unbelievable, but true...Metrolink woes

[bikkuri bahn]

"We knew we were going to have a rough year," said Gary Lettengarver, chief operating officer for Metrolink. "Conflicts with freight trains plus track construction were problems. And we're learning to use positive train control. This is a technology no one really knows about."

 

"We are one of the first railroads in the world to have positive train control," said Art Leahy, Metrolink's chief executive. "We have a learning curve, and we've had to debug the system."

 

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-metrolink-delays-20160201-story.html

[kvp]

Essentially they are trying to implement an etcs 3 like gps/mobile phone based system without the etcs 1/aces like ground based fallback/failsafe components.

 

This is like stucking a smartphone with a gps map and network connection into every cab and trying to run a railroad system with it. It may work, but a failsafe system should stop a train every time the mobile/gps signal goes away. Also, freight cars or at least freds should have a unit too, otherwise the end of freight trains (or any lost cars) can't be determined with 100% safety and require proceed ob sight rules from the drivers.

 

Actually this is really a first as pure radio based rolling block systems have never worked fully reliably before. The closest is the japanese trial installation but they do have a working fallback system.