By the way, on incandescent lamped signals what is the system approach to deal with the (vastly more frequent) hard failures? Pre-emptive replacement before expected life has expires? But there must still be premature failures. I'm genuinely curious on this point, not trying to make a case.
As far as I know, pre-emptive bulb replacements are not done. Crews report dim or dark lights and a maintainer is sent out to repair the signal.
We report anything along the right of way that is wrong. Burned out lights, crossing gates not operating, trespassers, anything out of the norm.
By strict rules, crews seeing a signal with a burned out light must assume that signal is displaying the most restrictive signal possible. In some cases that means stop, in other cases that means slow to restricted speed. Restricted speed is a speed slow enough to stop within half the range of vision short of an obstruction on the tracks, no matter what that obstruction is. Could be another train, a tree fallen on the tracks, a switch thrown the wrong direction for your travel, etc.
The actual definition of Restricted Speed is much longer than the above and leaves no room for error. Restricted Speed changes with sight conditions. A tight curve shortens your range of vision so you must slow even further to comply with seeing an obstruction and stopping in half the range of vision to said obstruction. In our case Restricted Speed shall not exceed 20 mph. The actual speed, not exceeding 20 mph, is up to the crew. Many things can affect your choice of speed. Bad weather, curves, night time.
Checking the points of a switch at night, in a driving rain, may require you to practically stop almost at the switch before you can see if it's lined up correctly.
True story. Night time, thunderstorms, tornadoes in the area, flash floods in area, 20 miles of knocked out signals. Took us 5 hours to cover those 20 miles strictly adhering to Restricted Speed. Everybody arrived at our home terminal safe and sound because of that rule. Except for the student conductor I was training. Scared the hoohaw out of him. I think he lost 20 years off his lifespan that night.
It's in the 70s F today. Sun is out. Life is good.
Phil
Edit: I just found out my roommate is leaving for the weekend to watch his mothers farm while she is out of town. Woot!!!! Get the house to myself for a few days. Party!!!!!!
You should convince your roommate to have a party at the farm, THEN you could say WOOT WOOT!!
OK, you've really got to give it to the kids for fun & playful stuff. :-)
We have a see-through enclosure to the side of the waiting room where the toys are. The holding pen for the young ones.
So I have obtained this new JCB digger for such use. A three year old lad plays happily with it and the big yellow CAT dump truck for a few minutes. Then he goes to the soft toy box and whips out 'Pink Pig', putting her down nearby. Great I think, he's going to pick up the pig with the loader and put her into the dump truck. Or maybe Pink Pig will just be watching from the side while major earthworks are underway. A new pigsty perhaps. Pink Pig may even be learning how to operate these machines .....
No way. He repeatedly runs over Pink Pig using the JCB and CAT alternately. Giggling ! :-)
Should I be concerned ? Possible options include :
A - continue as is. All pigs shall be run over by equipment ( permissive or absolute ? )
B - the pig should run over the equipment as per Godzilla.
C - pigs and earth moving stuff to be kept separately ( use a rota system ).
D - get the girls in. Have gender warfare using toy surrogates.
E - ask the U.N. to peacekeep.
F - just supply the toys and mind my own business.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
[ We certainly won't be putting in a scale model of Chicago's rail and signalling system ! :-) ]
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) More Ebola good news : a rapid diagnostic test ( ~ 10 minutes ) will be shortly available. Perhaps under a fortnight. It is antibody based and is in fact a re-fit of an existing kit technology used for Lassa Fever. Same assembly line just pop in dye-tagged Ebola antibodies at the relevant stage. Neat. In the field apply blood from a fingerprick to a small gutter in the kit then shortly read the pretty color or lack of ( quite like urine pregnancy kits ). So if you go to a village of say 100 people, test ten at random and find no hits then you could sensibly/confidently move on to the next village. Perfect for rapid sweeps across the countryside to target the trends, as well as assist individuals. Polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) is quite specific for Ebola but it's hard to find a Level-4+ biohazard laboratory with the requisite multi-million dollar devices out in the back blocks of Sierra Leone. The new kit is estimated at about 95% specific/sensitive ( PCR essentially gold standard ~ 100% ). Another cool aspect is that it is a co-development between normal commercial competitors ie. one who has one part of the solution and the other provides the complementary feature.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
[ We certainly won't be putting in a scale model of Chicago's rail and signalling system ! :-) ]
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) More Ebola good news : a rapid diagnostic test ( ~ 10 minutes ) will be shortly available. Perhaps under a fortnight. It is antibody based and is in fact a re-fit of an existing kit technology used for Lassa Fever. Same assembly line just pop in dye-tagged Ebola antibodies at the relevant stage. Neat. In the field apply blood from a fingerprick to a small gutter in the kit then shortly read the pretty color or lack of ( quite like urine pregnancy kits ). So if you go to a village of say 100 people, test ten at random and find no hits then you could sensibly/confidently move on to the next village. Perfect for rapid sweeps across the countryside to target the trends, as well as assist individuals. Polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) is quite specific for Ebola but it's hard to find a Level-4+ biohazard laboratory with the requisite multi-million dollar devices out in the back blocks of Sierra Leone. The new kit is estimated at about 95% specific/sensitive ( PCR essentially gold standard ~ 100% ). Another cool aspect is that it is a co-development between normal commercial competitors ie. one who has one part of the solution and the other provides the complementary feature.
I agree the "F" option is the best choice, the kid could just be substituting the Pink Pig for some toy of his that his siblings do things too that he doesn't like. Him taking out his frustrations on the Pink Pig could mean less problems FOR YOU as his doctor, as he comes to you and is a happier kid when he leaves. As he gets older though he will need to find other "Pink Pig" type outlets.
That Ebola test sounds ALOT like a blood glucose test, but with pretty colors instead of numbers coming up. I like it, I am learning things days before I see it on the News here at home!
By the way, on incandescent lamped signals what is the system approach to deal with the (vastly more frequent) hard failures? Pre-emptive replacement before expected life has expires? But there must still be premature failures. I'm genuinely curious on this point, not trying to make a case.
As far as I know, pre-emptive bulb replacements are not done. Crews report dim or dark lights and a maintainer is sent out to repair the signal.
We report anything along the right of way that is wrong. Burned out lights, crossing gates not operating, trespassers, anything out of the norm.
By strict rules, crews seeing a signal with a burned out light must assume that signal is displaying the most restrictive signal possible. In some cases that means stop, in other cases that means slow to restricted speed. Restricted speed is a speed slow enough to stop within half the range of vision short of an obstruction on the tracks, no matter what that obstruction is. Could be another train, a tree fallen on the tracks, a switch thrown the wrong direction for your travel, etc.
The actual definition of Restricted Speed is much longer than the above and leaves no room for error. Restricted Speed changes with sight conditions. A tight curve shortens your range of vision so you must slow even further to comply with seeing an obstruction and stopping in half the range of vision to said obstruction. In our case Restricted Speed shall not exceed 20 mph. The actual speed, not exceeding 20 mph, is up to the crew. Many things can affect your choice of speed. Bad weather, curves, night time.
Checking the points of a switch at night, in a driving rain, may require you to practically stop almost at the switch before you can see if it's lined up correctly.
True story. Night time, thunderstorms, tornadoes in the area, flash floods in area, 20 miles of knocked out signals. Took us 5 hours to cover those 20 miles strictly adhering to Restricted Speed. Everybody arrived at our home terminal safe and sound because of that rule. Except for the student conductor I was training. Scared the hoohaw out of him. I think he lost 20 years off his lifespan that night.
Phil
I think a sensible (but we're talking government regulations here, so sensible has little to do with it) way to determine LED life would be to put in a sensor to determine the light output and trigger a replacement order when it falls below a certain level, and trigger shutdown (forcing dark signal procedures) if it falls below a certain lower level. But then you'd probably have a lot of false triggers due to dirty sensors...
Anyway, there's also the issue of LEDs running too cool to melt snow off of themselves.
At the museum, Restricted Speed is all of that, but maximum 15. We have short blocks, tight clearances, operators (now including myself) who are not professionals, and lots of public wandering around with no clue about how dangerous trains are.
I read of one engineer who was operating at Restricted Speed in heavy fog. He determined that the fastest he could safely go was 0 MPH and sat there until the fog lifted or he outlawed.
Tomorrow's crew assignments for the museum are finally posted. I'm not running the streetcar, I'm conductor on an L train. It's different. A year from now, I can start learning how to run the L train. I'm on for the streetcar two or three times next month, though.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is also the last day my model railroad club can be in its building. After 51 years, they're kicking us out to tear down the building. The boxing club is moving into a brand new building next door. We're SOL.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is also the last day my model railroad club can be in its building. After 51 years, they're kicking us out to tear down the building. The boxing club is moving into a brand new building next door. We're SOL.
I hope you find a new home ASAP!!
It's now 6:49am here on the East Coast of the US and it's still in the mid 50's, it feels very nice! I am getting fewer and fewer tomatoes due to the cooler weather and will tear them all out next week. The dirt and plants will go to my recycle bins in my backyard for use elsewhere after they break down to just dirt. I will also drain my rain water barrel and get it ready for the upcoming Winter too. The barrel sits on my deck so I can water the tomatoes and peppers with it.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is also the last day my model railroad club can be in its building. After 51 years, they're kicking us out to tear down the building. The boxing club is moving into a brand new building next door. We're SOL.
I hope you find a new home ASAP!!
It's now 6:49am here on the East Coast of the US and it's still in the mid 50's, it feels very nice! I am getting fewer and fewer tomatoes due to the cooler weather and will tear them all out next week. The dirt and plants will go to my recycle bins in my backyard for use elsewhere after they break down to just dirt. I will also drain my rain water barrel and get it ready for the upcoming Winter too. The barrel sits on my deck so I can water the tomatoes and peppers with it.
RE: By the way, on
As far as I know, pre-emptive bulb replacements are not done. Crews report dim or dark lights and a maintainer is sent out to repair the signal.
We report anything along the right of way that is wrong. Burned out lights, crossing gates not operating, trespassers, anything out of the norm.
By strict rules, crews seeing a signal with a burned out light must assume that signal is displaying the most restrictive signal possible. In some cases that means stop, in other cases that means slow to restricted speed. Restricted speed is a speed slow enough to stop within half the range of vision short of an obstruction on the tracks, no matter what that obstruction is. Could be another train, a tree fallen on the tracks, a switch thrown the wrong direction for your travel, etc.
The actual definition of Restricted Speed is much longer than the above and leaves no room for error. Restricted Speed changes with sight conditions. A tight curve shortens your range of vision so you must slow even further to comply with seeing an obstruction and stopping in half the range of vision to said obstruction. In our case Restricted Speed shall not exceed 20 mph. The actual speed, not exceeding 20 mph, is up to the crew. Many things can affect your choice of speed. Bad weather, curves, night time.
Checking the points of a switch at night, in a driving rain, may require you to practically stop almost at the switch before you can see if it's lined up correctly.
True story. Night time, thunderstorms, tornadoes in the area, flash floods in area, 20 miles of knocked out signals. Took us 5 hours to cover those 20 miles strictly adhering to Restricted Speed. Everybody arrived at our home terminal safe and sound because of that rule. Except for the student conductor I was training. Scared the hoohaw out of him. I think he lost 20 years off his lifespan that night.
Phil
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
RE: It's in the 70s F
You should convince your roommate to have a party at the farm, THEN you could say WOOT WOOT!!
OK, you've really got to give
OK, you've really got to give it to the kids for fun & playful stuff. :-)
We have a see-through enclosure to the side of the waiting room where the toys are. The holding pen for the young ones.
So I have obtained this new JCB digger for such use. A three year old lad plays happily with it and the big yellow CAT dump truck for a few minutes. Then he goes to the soft toy box and whips out 'Pink Pig', putting her down nearby. Great I think, he's going to pick up the pig with the loader and put her into the dump truck. Or maybe Pink Pig will just be watching from the side while major earthworks are underway. A new pigsty perhaps. Pink Pig may even be learning how to operate these machines .....
No way. He repeatedly runs over Pink Pig using the JCB and CAT alternately. Giggling ! :-)
Should I be concerned ? Possible options include :
A - continue as is. All pigs shall be run over by equipment ( permissive or absolute ? )
B - the pig should run over the equipment as per Godzilla.
C - pigs and earth moving stuff to be kept separately ( use a rota system ).
D - get the girls in. Have gender warfare using toy surrogates.
E - ask the U.N. to peacekeep.
F - just supply the toys and mind my own business.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: F - just supply the
Go for F. It reduces stress and you will have a longer lifespan.
Phil
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Yes, F indeed. [ We
Yes, F indeed.
[ We certainly won't be putting in a scale model of Chicago's rail and signalling system ! :-) ]
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) More Ebola good news : a rapid diagnostic test ( ~ 10 minutes ) will be shortly available. Perhaps under a fortnight. It is antibody based and is in fact a re-fit of an existing kit technology used for Lassa Fever. Same assembly line just pop in dye-tagged Ebola antibodies at the relevant stage. Neat. In the field apply blood from a fingerprick to a small gutter in the kit then shortly read the pretty color or lack of ( quite like urine pregnancy kits ). So if you go to a village of say 100 people, test ten at random and find no hits then you could sensibly/confidently move on to the next village. Perfect for rapid sweeps across the countryside to target the trends, as well as assist individuals. Polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) is quite specific for Ebola but it's hard to find a Level-4+ biohazard laboratory with the requisite multi-million dollar devices out in the back blocks of Sierra Leone. The new kit is estimated at about 95% specific/sensitive ( PCR essentially gold standard ~ 100% ). Another cool aspect is that it is a co-development between normal commercial competitors ie. one who has one part of the solution and the other provides the complementary feature.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: Yes, F indeed. [ We
I agree the "F" option is the best choice, the kid could just be substituting the Pink Pig for some toy of his that his siblings do things too that he doesn't like. Him taking out his frustrations on the Pink Pig could mean less problems FOR YOU as his doctor, as he comes to you and is a happier kid when he leaves. As he gets older though he will need to find other "Pink Pig" type outlets.
That Ebola test sounds ALOT like a blood glucose test, but with pretty colors instead of numbers coming up. I like it, I am learning things days before I see it on the News here at home!
RE: RE: By the way, on
I think a sensible (but we're talking government regulations here, so sensible has little to do with it) way to determine LED life would be to put in a sensor to determine the light output and trigger a replacement order when it falls below a certain level, and trigger shutdown (forcing dark signal procedures) if it falls below a certain lower level. But then you'd probably have a lot of false triggers due to dirty sensors...
Anyway, there's also the issue of LEDs running too cool to melt snow off of themselves.
At the museum, Restricted Speed is all of that, but maximum 15. We have short blocks, tight clearances, operators (now including myself) who are not professionals, and lots of public wandering around with no clue about how dangerous trains are.
I read of one engineer who was operating at Restricted Speed in heavy fog. He determined that the fastest he could safely go was 0 MPH and sat there until the fog lifted or he outlawed.
Tomorrow's crew assignments for the museum are finally posted. I'm not running the streetcar, I'm conductor on an L train. It's different. A year from now, I can start learning how to run the L train. I'm on for the streetcar two or three times next month, though.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is also the last day my model railroad club can be in its building. After 51 years, they're kicking us out to tear down the building. The boxing club is moving into a brand new building next door. We're SOL.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Good, (early), morning
Good, (early), morning everyone. 3:42 AM - PDT
TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join SETI Refugees
RE: Meanwhile, tomorrow is
I hope you find a new home ASAP!!
It's now 6:49am here on the East Coast of the US and it's still in the mid 50's, it feels very nice! I am getting fewer and fewer tomatoes due to the cooler weather and will tear them all out next week. The dirt and plants will go to my recycle bins in my backyard for use elsewhere after they break down to just dirt. I will also drain my rain water barrel and get it ready for the upcoming Winter too. The barrel sits on my deck so I can water the tomatoes and peppers with it.
RE: RE: Meanwhile,
TL04 you have mail.