Amtrak Status Maps, Amsnag, ASM Alerts

[John Bobinyec]

It doesn't pay to go on vacation sometimes. The server is having major issues and I can't talk to it right now. I'm starting up another server at another location to at least get the maps going again. However, the Alerts and Amsnag will be down.

Sorry folks.

John Bobinyec

 

[TimePeace]

John we appreciate all that stuff you do. No worries.

Can't talk to the server? Ha. Makes me think of my favorite computer saying, "this s***'s great when it works."

Fix it when you get time, and many thanks from me and probably from others as well.

 

[Ryan]

If you need any help with anything, shoot me a message.

Thanks for all the work you do on this.

 

[PaulM]

In the meantime try this for Amsnag, at least until Amtrak catches up with it.

 

[Carolyn Jane]

Is there any way to get updates for the auto train? I know it doesn't board or discharge passengers along the way, but it does make some stops? CJ

 

[John Bobinyec]

The primary server didn't manage to come up for air last night, so this cannot be resolved until Monday evening, 12/31/2012. In the meantime, a backup server is providing limited service as follows:

- The maps will be refreshed every 10 minutes or so, instead of every 5.

- ASM Alerts will not work.

In addition, the maps will not be refreshed at all as follows:

- 12/30/2012 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. EST. This the normal Amtrak maintenance period.

- 12/30/2012 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

- 12/31/2012 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST

jb

 

[NW cannonball]

It doesn't pay to go on vacation sometimes. The server is having major issues and I can't talk to it right now. I'm starting up another server at another location to at least get the maps going again. However, the Alerts and Amsnag will be down.

Sorry folks.

John Bobinyec

Well, about 3 time double gutz thank you for the information service you provide.

I'm using the service and i'm thanking you for putting it up there on the web.

Bless your generous soul. and thanks.

DouMou arigato gozaimas

 

[xyzzy]

Is there any way to get updates for the auto train? I know it doesn't board or discharge passengers along the way, but it does make some stops? CJ

The northbound and southbound stop in Florence, SC to refuel the engines, change the engineer and conductor, and service the cars. I've heard that there is a hidden station code (ZSC?) for this stop, but I believe Amtrak uses it only internally and does not make station info for it available to the public.

 

[dlagrua]

The resources put up by John and Paul have been a great aid to train travelers. I have no idea why Amtrak would like them removed or shut down. All they do is provide good information for passengers. You could do the same searches individually as the infomation is in the public domain.

What's probably needed to keep these sites going is a redirect to proxy servers every now and then.

 

[crescent2]

Thank you very much, amsnag is a great help!

 

[John Bobinyec]

The resources put up by John and Paul have been a great aid to train travelers. I have no idea why Amtrak would like them removed or shut down. All they do is provide good information for passengers. You could do the same searches individually as the infomation is in the public domain.

What's probably needed to keep these sites going is a redirect to proxy servers every now and then.

I agree. I might have to do that. Does anyone know of a proxy server which will handle LWP (Perl) requests?

jb

 

[John Bobinyec]

The primary server didn't manage to come up for air last night, so this cannot be resolved until Monday evening, 12/31/2012. In the meantime, a backup server is providing limited service as follows:

- The maps will be refreshed every 10 minutes or so, instead of every 5.

- ASM Alerts will not work.

In addition, the maps will not be refreshed at all as follows:

- 12/30/2012 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. EST. This the normal Amtrak maintenance period.

- 12/30/2012 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

- 12/31/2012 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST

jb

The maps MIGHT continue to run without interruption during the following time periods:

- 12/30/2012 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

- 12/31/2012 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST

No promises.

jb

 

[battalion51]

Is there any way to get updates for the auto train? I know it doesn't board or discharge passengers along the way, but it does make some stops? CJ

The northbound and southbound stop in Florence, SC to refuel the engines, change the engineer and conductor, and service the cars. I've heard that there is a hidden station code (ZSC?) for this stop, but I believe Amtrak uses it only internally and does not make station info for it available to the public.

The code for Florence is XFL for the purposes of Auto Train. The times that Auto Train passes other stations is reported to do the delay report and to update the status of the train. Trying to do the delay report from Sanford to Florence without any other reporting location would be nearly impossible. In addition Auto Train now technically travels over two railroads (CSX and FDOT/CFRC), so at minimum you have to distinguish the delays between the two entities.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Well, the good news is that we're fully back online now. The bad news is that the server suffered a hardware hiccup, which left no evidence. That means that it will probably happen at some time again in the future.

jb

 

[NW cannonball]

Ay - "stuff happens" - Thanks for making the service available, I'm expecting many here use it a lot. Thanks.

 

[Henry Kisor]

All of us here are deeply grateful for Amsnag, John. Thank you.

 

[John Bobinyec]

All of us here are deeply grateful for Amsnag, John. Thank you.

Amsnag is Paul's. It runs on my server, though.

Amtrak Status Maps and ASM Alerts are mine.

jb

 

[CREW DORM#2424]

The X-Codes, as they are known in Arrow, are OS locations along the route. XFL is actually considered "Florence Tower". XLO is "Lorton Switch". The list goes on and on.

 

[Phil S]

The X-Codes, as they are known in Arrow, are OS locations along the route. XFL is actually considered "Florence Tower". XLO is "Lorton Switch". The list goes on and on.

CrewDorm -- Does this mean that ARROW is the only system Amtrak has for keeping track of its trains? How about on the track that Amtrak owns? Do they base their dispatching on Arrow or do they have another computer system for that?

Edit: With some Googling I answered some of my questions. See if this is at least rougly correct On Amtrak owned road, CETC runs all the signals automatically and all the signals are connected to the CETC computer by fiber optic (except for a few places that are still dispatched manually).

So then, do Arrow and CETC inter-communicate? Ie. does Arrow get its train status info from CETC automatically? I suspect not, that instead even on Amtrak owned road, the station agents have to manually enter the train arr/dep info.

 

[Ryan]

Station agents don't have to manually input train arrival/departure info. Locomotives are equipped with a GPS unit, which has a geofence around each station to automatically transmit arrival/departure times (along with other data).

See the article starting on page 7:

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/333/477/AmtrakInk-061009.pdf

 

[Phil S]

Station agents don't have to manually input train arrival/departure info. Locomotives are equipped with a GPS unit, which has a geofence around each station to automatically transmit arrival/departure times (along with other data).

See the article starting on page 7:

http://www.amtrak.co...kInk-061009.pdf

That's certainly good info, and a source worth checking regularly. Thanks. So how come it still doesn't always work? For example, when #14(22?) sat for many many hours north of Chemult the arr/dep times for Eugene and other places down the line were completely wrong for many hours. I've seen this happen on the CZ several times and on the EB. And then a probably rhetorical question,why does Arrow still feature the dreaded "disruption" feature? Seems like there'd be no excuse for it if the loco tracking system automatically feeds Arrow the locations. Gene Poon, over on TO, wrote within the last year that the arr/dep info is still being entered by hand. Anybody know the present status across the system?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I'd consider running a proxy or mirror as part of a failover or load balancing process.

How much bandwidth do these processes typically consume?

I just found out that our HO is moving to another part of town and I'll probably be moving with it to avoid a long commute.

I won't know who my ISP will be until I've found my next home.

 

[John Bobinyec]

I'd consider running a proxy or mirror as part of a failover or load balancing process.

How much bandwidth do these processes typically consume?

I was asking if anyone knew of a proxy server which supports LWP (Perl) because the backup server that I was using during the primary server failure, had a static address. I was afraid it would get blocked before I got the primary server started again. Happily, that didn't happen.

For future reference, I would still like to know of such a proxy server (supporting LWP (Perl) traffic).

I don't know offhand how much bandwidth they use.

Thanks,

jb

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Unfortunately I'm no expert on proxies or Perl or web scraping. Everything I work on is using an expected address range through official channels.

 

[CREW DORM#2524]

The X-Codes, as they are known in Arrow, are OS locations along the route. XFL is actually considered "Florence Tower". XLO is "Lorton Switch". The list goes on and on.

CrewDorm -- Does this mean that ARROW is the only system Amtrak has for keeping track of its trains? How about on the track that Amtrak owns? Do they base their dispatching on Arrow or do they have another computer system for that?

Edit: With some Googling I answered some of my questions. See if this is at least rougly correct On Amtrak owned road, CETC runs all the signals automatically and all the signals are connected to the CETC computer by fiber optic (except for a few places that are still dispatched manually).

So then, do Arrow and CETC inter-communicate? Ie. does Arrow get its train status info from CETC automatically? I suspect not, that instead even on Amtrak owned road, the station agents have to manually enter the train arr/dep info.

The NEC is tied into the X codes as well. I dont have my NEC code list handy at the momet, but yes, its all tied into Arrow. For example, the first OS for train 52 is leaving Sanford is XSF or Sanford Switch. Few examples are XFK is Folkston, X2G is McIntosh, GA, and XN5 is Contentnea, NC. As far as the NEC, all interlcokings have a X code for tracking in Arrow.