Lightning Strikes
ellis
Max565 <max...@aol.com> wrote:
>Consider this:
> There are 23 nuclear power generation facilities in North America
>which account for the production of 60% of the North American Power Grid.
Too bad your numbers aren't even close to being correct. There are
a lot more that 23 and they don't even close to generating 60%. It's
closer to 20%.
Is anybody surprised that a y2k doom-monger would have his number so
far off?
--
http://www.fnet.net/~ellis/photo/
Clark Morris
Chicago areas are among those heavily dependent on nuclear power. I
know the PJM (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland) pool has several of
them. The web site www.euy2k.com has good coverage of a number of the
issues with electricity supply and may have links to a breakdown by area
of dependency on nuclear power. If we are get enough disruptions, Y2k,
weather, or both, times could get very interesting. The railroads need
electricity from the utilities so that they can ship the coal to the
utilities to make electricity. The US Nuclear regulatory commission and
its Canadian counterpart are requiring the utilities to prove that Y2k
will not affect safety and security systems. If not, the nuclear plants
are to be shut down. They probably also have to show that the 911
systems in the areas around the plants are Y2k ready. In addition there
are a lot of computer controls in most of the baseline non-nuclear
plants and on the systems control and distribution side. The year 2000
has the following increased vulnerabilities for the railroads: power,
communications and control problems due to computer/process control
system malfunctions on the railroad or its suppliers, power and
communications problems due to the year 2000 being at the top of a 11
year sun-spot activity cycle that blew power transformers in Quebec the
last time round and may give sattelite communications problems, and
general bad weather. Also various other crucial suppliers may be fouled
up.
Clark Morris, CFM Technical Programming Services
on assignment in New Brunswick, Canada mor...@nbnet.nb.ca
John Garrison
do it the old fashioned way with handwritten orders and track warrants. (DTC
authority on CSX) Seeing as how there is still much dark territory in US
railroads there is a certain amount of that that goes on everyday!
Max565
And hand-written paychecks and hand-written waybills, and hand-written
trainlists, (oooh, yeah that'll be easy!), and hand-written slow orders, and
hand-written customer billing, and hand-written job descriptions for the new
handwriting employees. Yeah, it'll be a boon to the employment industry, all
right, but in the mean time things MIGHT just slow down quite a little bit,
waiting a the current staff to shove the keyboard aside and write something out
for you . . . or are ya gonna hafta do it yourself??
BRING BACK THE CLERKS! (tell 'em we're sorry about all the janitorial duties!
It won't happen again!)
(hand-written) Dan'L
dave pierson
> >do it the old fashioned way with handwritten orders and track warrants. (DTC
> >authority on CSX) Seeing as how there is still much dark territory in US
> >railroads there is a certain amount of that that goes on everyday!
Welllllll.
It goes on on certain tracks/divisions/whatever, with enough
skilled people to handle _those_ areas. And _those_ areas
are the light traffic ones anyway. The people, and techniques,
to do that system wide, for major traffic levels, don't exist.
Most of the people to issue those hand written orders
are no longer located where they can deliver them.
And most of them no longer are used to a _real_ _paper_
environment. (There's CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching)
that backs up the decision making process.)
And the com links have lotsof nice 'puters in between that
might (or might not) still be 100% functional.
Dispatching by paper is a learned skiil. If learned
And Practiced, daily, at both the dispatch and train crew end
it is very safe, else, it can get real unsafe real quick.
Case in pooint, 10 years or so back, a normally double
track/CTC/ABS line 'near' here was singled, with train
order, temporarily, for maintanance on the other track.
'dispatch' lost track of one train and three people died....
I've no idea if Y2K will be a mojor impact or no, but
'just issuing train orders' is a lot harder to do, and do
safely, than it may appear.
--
thanks
dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can
manage,
Compaq Computer Corporation |the opinions, my own.
334 South St |
Shrewsbury, Mass. 01545 USA |pie...@ggone.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J
Raffles
"The Net of a million lies..." att. to Vernor Vinge
Frank Greene
whatever reason. Handwriting/typing the train orders is a minor
problem.
How are you going to get the orders to the train crews? Communication
systems are at least as vulnerable as the dispatching systems.
Remember, even in the "good old days" the dispatcher had telephone or
telegraph to communicate with the operator who typed the orders and
handed them up to the train crew. All of that "infrastructure" is
GONE!!! A dispatcher in Jacksonville can't carry the order to the crew
in Ohio!
FG
ellis
Max565 <max...@aol.com> wrote:
>My figures are from the 3rd quarter 1998 IEEE publications.
And they say 60%? I doubt it.
--
http:/www.fnet.net/~ellis/photo/
John Garrison
Frank Greene <frih...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:375DD200...@earthlink.net...
If absoultely nothing else works, we do have means in our operating rules
for running without signals or communications. It does require a caboose for
positive protection of the rear. Although a working two way eot usually
suffices.
John Garrison
Max565 <max...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990608101044...@ng-bh1.aol.com...
> >Even if all heck breaks loose after Y2K, trains can still run, they'll
just
> >do it the old fashioned way with handwritten orders and track warrants.
(DTC
> >authority on CSX) Seeing as how there is still much dark territory in US
> >railroads there is a certain amount of that that goes on everyday!
>
> trainlists, (oooh, yeah that'll be easy!), and hand-written slow orders,
and
> hand-written customer billing, and hand-written job descriptions for the
new
> handwriting employees. Yeah, it'll be a boon to the employment industry,
all
> right, but in the mean time things MIGHT just slow down quite a little
bit,
> waiting a the current staff to shove the keyboard aside and write
something out
> for you . . . or are ya gonna hafta do it yourself??
>
> BRING BACK THE CLERKS! (tell 'em we're sorry about all the janitorial
duties!
> It won't happen again!)
>
> (hand-written) Dan'L
Ok yeah slower to be sure, but we'll still keep plugging along! Nothing
stops CSX! Much.
ellis
Max565 <max...@aol.com> wrote:
>BRING BACK THE CLERKS! (tell 'em we're sorry about all the janitorial duties!
>It won't happen again!)
Just what is that nature of your financial incentive? Are you selling
Y2K survival kits or something?
--
http://www.fnet.net/~ellis/photo/