Remotely controling a locomotive

[railiner]

unless locotrol remote control is used to control the loco at the other end.

Has that ever been done on a passenger train?

 

[Cal]

Has that ever been done on a passenger train?

I mean isn't that what engineers able to control the engine from a cabcar?

 

[railiner]

I mean isn't that what engineers able to control the engine from a cabcar?

Thru cables, standard practice, but using Locotrol, radio-controlled…I’ve never heard of its use on a passenger train…

 

[MARC Rider]

Thru cables, standard practice, but using Locotrol, radio-controlled…I’ve never heard of its use on a passenger train…

Everything's wireless nowadays, why not this?

 

[railiner]

Everything's wireless nowadays, why not this?

I don’t know…maybe when it was first developed, it wasn’t considered reliable enough? Or maybe it was vulnerable to malicious hackers?
I really don’t have a clue…

 

[Siegmund]

Everything's wireless nowadays, why not this?

Even nowadays radio does not work very well underground.

I seem to recall that Locotrol has some built-in logic to decide what distributed power should do when it loses signal (something like "maintain current power setting, but if you don't hear from the master unit for 5 minutes, idle the slave unit") which works well in short tunnels or a winding river canyon, but would not work well coming through the tunnel into New York or Washington or Seattle.

With enough money a technical solution could be devised -- radio repeaters in the tunnel ceilings, or the ability to transmit more detailed programs of future instructions to the slave unit, or something -- but just building all new passenger cars with the necessary wiring doesn't require new technology, doesn't have points of failure external to the train, and is less hackable.

 

[John Santos]

I don’t know…maybe when it was first developed, it wasn’t considered reliable enough? Or maybe it was vulnerable to malicious hackers?
I really don’t have a clue…

Modern digital tech allows for virtually unhackable encrypted communications, if it is implemented correctly. (That's always a VERY BIG "if", though!) But sufficient computational power to do real-time encryption was either unavailable of extremely expensive until relatively recently, and trains need to be compatible or at least co-exist with equipment that is 50 or 60 years old! So lots of things that could be done much better are restricted to the lowest common denominator. Another issue is radio power. Bluetooth at a few meters or WiFi that works for 50-100 meters is cheap, reliable, secure and off-the-shelf, but neither would be sufficient for a mile-long freight train.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

(That's always a VERY BIG "if", though!)

Amen. Considering how many layers of restrictive access, paid bounties, and security revisions are required to partially protect vertically integrated consumer gear with relatively short lifespans that "if" is doing some massive lifting. Reliable security is surprisingly difficult to maintain long term and early communication standards ignored the kind of security we need in a super connected world with cheap and plentiful hardware. That leaves much of the security we still rely upon operating on top of an inherently insecure foundation.

 

[Qapla]

If speed and responsiveness of the communication from the lead engine to other engines on passenger trains is a factor, it might be better to use fiber instead of wireless. Many network systems in buildings still install wired LAN for desk workers instead of using WiFi due to its speed, reliability and security.