GE "Trip Optimizer"

Not a fan of "trip sodomizer". It only runs the throttle/dynamic, no air. Lots of issues with it. Besides the fact it tries to "coast" over hills, it just does a bad job with most everything. If TO was a student, I would have pulled them from the seat long ago. Dyanamic uphill? Banned!

It will NOT run track speed, period. It doesn't help that my employer also programmed the wrong speeds in may places years ago, and has never fixed them. For instance, if you run opposite main (no real thing on a bi-directional railroad anyway), it will knock every interlocking down to 30 mph. It has main #1 in one place programmed for 10 mph (it's good for 60). It has a 25 mph main programmed for 10. All sorts of good stuff.

It also does annoying stuff like isolated the engines behind you constantly, and let's the leader drone in notch 8 all afternoon, while the other 2 are auto-shut-down.

I've also run into an anomaly where if TO is running the train, and my rear engine or engines are auto-shut down, they will not auto-start up when I place control back into manual mode...even if I press "yes" to the restore consist prompt. I literally have to go back and place the isolation switch into start, and manually crank/start the engines. I try to avoid TO as much as possible for these reasons. They monitor usage, and will call you if your numbers aren't high enough because use a mandatory. Lucky for me, it fails to initialize some of the time (last trip), and you can't run it on bad signals, or following another train. It's always important to have an "out".

Not to mention the complacency factor. I'm no master engineer by any means, but the only way I'm going to get better is by running my train..not pressing a computer prompt asking me what track we're lined down.

Or what happens if the thing fails?  Who are you going to call?  The engineer!

The dumbing down of a great industry continues...

I feel for ya, Jeffery. So sad.

Should have called the TO "HAL".

It works better out here on the plains, where there is no severe undulating territory, few speed restrictions for curves, and no municipal speed restrictions.  

The entire selling point of Trip Optimizer is fuel savings.  No doubt it succeeds at that aspect.  When there are no restrictions, it can keep the speed between 66 and 69 MPH in 70 MPH territory here.  And BNSF has programmed the maximum speeds correctly.  However, Jeff is absolutely correct that it does not do as good (or as smooth) a job as an Engineer could, especially where there are abundant curves and undulations.  It is designed to be cautious, slowing early for both temporary and permanent speed restrictions.  It's quick to isolate trailing units and cautious about putting them back on-line.  The built-in caution, as well as the time it takes to set it up at every crew change, do reduce running time of the train, but, apparently, the numbers indicate that the cost of delay is more than offset by the saving in fuel cost.  Fuel is a monumental cost to railroads.  It is very difficult to coach and monitor a diverse group of Engineers in complying with rules for fuel savings.  Thus, using Trip Optimizer has been made mandatory.

There are potential trip wires that come with mandatory use of Trip Optimizer.  Here's a predictable future scenario:

• A train wreck caused by train handling will occur while an Engineer is running the train for a valid reason, such as inoperative Trip Optimizer.
• Regulatory agencies investigating the accident will determine that the Engineer's train handling skills were compromised by having been forced by Company rules to always rely on Trip Optimizer to run the train.
• FRA will mandate that an Engineer must make a minimum number of trips over each district of his or her assigned territory, each month, without using Trip Optimizer, in order to maintain an acceptable level of skill at train handling, and this will be a condition of maintaining the Engineer's certificate ("license").

No doubt about it -- Trip Optimizer is annoying for engine crews, but it does save enough fuel to cover its cost and the cost of delays.  It's a one-trick pony, but it performs its trick reliably.

Now is there intergration with PTC systems?  Guess thevPTC is the higher oerating authority.

Within out hands on for some trips, there will be no one in the cab who could go into "Capt. Scully" mode in case electronics fail.

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Within out hands on for some trips, there will be no one in the cab who could go into "Capt. Scully" mode in case electronics fail.

WHAT????????

Somebody who could control or stop the train manually if all the electronics go out.  The train version of the Hudson miracle.

A very well thought out analysis number 90. I wonder if the operations research programers considered the cost of a single major wreck in a populated area with a train loaded with hazardous chemicals due to the degradation of operational skill of an engineer secondary to automation vs fuel savings.

Tommy, that's the very worst case scenario, and we should hope it never happens.  Risk management professionals have undoubtedly had input into the design and use of Trip Optimizer.  There is no way to avoid all risk, and there are ways to calculate odds and probabilities.  Considering the low number of Haz trains, compared to the overall number of trains, the probabilities of a fiery derailment wiping out a nearby neighborhood are low, even though the possibility does exist.  

The number of trains being operated by Trip Optimizer, though, makes it more likely that Engineers will be handicapped at refining their train handling skills after they become certified, and sometime in the future, there is the likelihood of a derailment caused by train handling.  There have always been such derailments.  The factor that has not been present is the reduced "throttle time" due to Trip Optimizer use.

There have always been skilled Locomotive Engineers and there have also been Locomotive Engineers without great aptitude for the work.  The skilled Engineers have the aptitude to keep all factors (terrain, train makeup, locomotive characteristics, speed restrictions, track authority) in mind and feel the train through the seat of their pants, and Trip Optimizer will be less of a handicap to them when they manually operate trains.  The weak Engineers are good enough to "get by" but not so poor as to be dismissed from service.  Engineers with aptitude for the work will continue to be able to skillfully run the engine manually.  It is the weaker ones who are more likely to be handicapped by the daily use of automation to run the train.

Somewhat analogous to Tom’s comments about degradation of skills; I can recollect a similar issue factoring into a plane crash at SFO a number of years back.  It was an Asian based airline and the NTSB determined the flight crews reliance on autopilot for all aspects of flight from takeoff through landing had negatively impacted their ability to recognize a problem and react to it in a timely manner.

I imagine in future decades our children and grandchildren will be having this same conversation as it relates to a motor vehicle operators skills once self driving vehicles become commonplace.

Whether piloting a plane; operating a train or driving a truck; we will “lose it if we don’t use it.”

Curt

Bringing the TO point back up, I recently had a trip where I had a 50 mph train (50 mph track speed), with a 25 mph slow for a tenth of a mile. TO was running, and about 11 miles from the slow, it notched off from about 6 to idle. The speed curve was a long descent into the 25. Yes, this thing was planning on coasting for 10 miles into a 25. Yeah, not gonna happen on a trailer train. Yanked it out of auto, and ran track speed up to the slow and down into the 25 and back up.

Now, me just being contrary...there is a rule that says trains must run to maintain track speed, but not exceed it. But it also says we must use TO  when available , which doesn't operate track speed. So which rule do I follow?

I've also been instructed to take a train out of TO before. Again, on the trailers the dispatcher came on and asked us "what's the reason for the delay?". I had no idea what he was talking about, since we hadn't stopped since we left town. "The computer shows you with a 2 minute delay, and I have to put a reason for the delay in the comments". It dawned on me that we were using TO, and we were just coasting from hill top to hill top. I explained it to the dispatcher, who said "stand by". A moment later, he came back with the chief's initials and time to cut out TO and run manually. Guess fuel savings are only a concern when they say it is...

And our pool had a rather dubious incident about 2 years ago when TO broke 3 knuckles and a drawhead on one train. After they got the drawhead (the same time they got the recrew), we heard the dispatcher give them orders the train was to be run manually, only.