Amtrak is becoming part of a a real-life Atlaa Shruggrd. Again.
Posted by katrinam41 3 years, 1 month ago to News
The very machines that make our lives comfortable will now be a danger to us. It's very real. Good call, Ayn.
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I've spent over 25 years working with Harsco Fairmont rail maintenance equipment. Bed leveling, tie and rail replacement, fill and tamping, re-grinding profiles are just a few of the services their products can accomplish. Some of the ribbon rail machines may be 1/2 to 3/4 mile in length. It is incredibly complex to re-route and coordinate the mass of rail traffic and keep every nuance of integrity of the rails at the same time. In the movie, Atlas Shrugged, when Hank and Dagny are overseeing the construction of the "bridge", a Harsco rail "machine" is part of the scene.
In 2010 Berkshire Hathaway completed the acquisition of BNSF. If I'd had 26 billion in 1996 I'd have jumped in. I fixtured one of the most complex parts of G;E's Tier 1 locomotive diesel engine; main bearing caps. Unbelievable tolerances, temperature sensitive to geometric dimensions. Working with the engineers, they divulged that the new engine was to power new electric "traction" motors. G.E. and Toshiba electric were synchronously developing the technology. Global competition to put new gear into heavy haul rail that would cut fuel consumption by 30 to 35 percent. The rail industry in this country is second to The US Navy in diesel consumption. At the same time this was occurring new pollution control measures were going through the US congress, and passed. While naval and rail fuel were unaffected the restrictions on road fuel inflated the cost and price for the trucking and civilian fuel. Transferring the profitability for the oil refiners to the general public, directly and indirectly. Right out of Atlas...n'so? er' no? LOL
I'll save what I know, and have been involved in, regarding electric power generation, for another time.
Burlington is rather personal. In Dec of 1937, in Davenport Iowa, my grandfather was killed in a yard switching incident. In Dec of 1957, almost to the day, in the St. Paul switch yard, my dad almost lost his life in an identical incident. Rail transport has one of the highest mortality rates of any occupation. Gives me pause to speculate on my non-existence
https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/office...
40 years ago there were approximately 9500 accident/incidents nationally at highway rail intersecctions. Today I think the number has been reduced to around 2000.
So, your work was fixed station sensor? Infrared? I see where the hardware and software is applicable recently. I did a lot of machine automation in a lot of different disciplines in the early 90's. Most complicated job was a welding machine incorporating 4 proprietary systems. We were the test site for GE Fanuc syncro-servo card for a PLC. 5 EEPROM later...success. We had to compensate for thermal growth of different gage laminations of low carbon and stainless steel sheeting. These were spot welded in varying progressions and side shift, making diamond patterns, on materials up to 5 ft wide and 24 ft long. Targeting pre-perforated material in the progression of welds that the perf would fall in the midst of the pattern was done with thermal feedback and algorithmic compensation. Our thermal feedback was limited to contact sensing at the time. We've come a long way baby!
The train speeds in the BNSF test yard were slow enough we output a signal to a cheap camera to take a picture of the defective wheel as it rolled by. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff we found.
I've done a lot of PLC programming for mainly Rockwell systems, but also did Siemens and Mitsubishi.
Step 7 is just a nightmare.
Understand ultra sound approach. I can sense "wrongness" in mechanical things by vibration, smell, heat, without apparent failure. Your approach is a wonderful extension of human senses.