Lincoln service speed limit increased

[frequentflyer]

Funny, I remember back in 1984, the State House ran from STL-CHI in 5 hours and 20 minutes.

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19841028&item=0043
Oops, I was wrong, the F40 and five amfleets did it in 5 hours 10 minutes, the Eagle took 5 hours and 20 minutes.

 

[frequentflyer]

Ohhh boyyyyy, only $1.9 billion and how many years spent on this? I guess we still should celebrate the increase...until they are negated plus some by stupid dispatchers.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

I blame the state of Illinois for that. If you are spending good money subsidizing trains and being treated like that. Someone from the Governor's office should be calling NS HQ in the ATL. Said Dispatcher ( and those over him) would get an attitude adjustment or a new resume.

Believe me, if NS was delaying UP hot trains, it would be fixed in 24 hours.

 

[George Harris]

I fixed the conversion for you. It was due to an idiosyncrasy in the Wikipedia conversion function; if the input value is a multiple of 10, it assumes the output should be rounded to the nearest "10".

Understood. Wiki can definitely mislead you at times. This being one of them. While speed limits are normally given in 5 mph intervals, they mean exactly what they say. 60 mph means 60 mph, not 59 and not 61, at least when on rails. However, when you see a weather report stating winds of 60 mph, that can mean anything between around 56 or 7 to 63 or 4, so for these to convert to anything closer than the nearest 10 or at the least nearest 5 is silly. By the way the very common 79 mph speed limit is 127 km/h.

 

[moosejunky99]

That is cool to hear about the faster speeds on the train... i love train travel because it is so much less stressful then flying or driving....

 

[neroden]

Ohhh boyyyyy, only $1.9 billion and how many years spent on this? I guess we still should celebrate the increase...until they are negated plus some by stupid dispatchers.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

NS dispatching is a serious mess! We really need to get Senator Durbin's amendment passed so that Amtrak can sue on its own behalf (we are not going to stop working on this).

 

[toddinde]

Well, that means that the real drive time (including bathroom breaks, meals, and possibly a fueling stop) is probably 5 hours or so. (That is, if one keeps to the speed limit ) Besides, given the traffic in the Chicago area, it probably takes an hour just to drive from the Loop to the edge of the suburbs.

I tend to find Google drive times to be a bit overly optimistic.

Yes, and the almost certain congestion unless you’re driving at 2:00 am. I frequently drive between Tucson and Phoenix and you have to factor in congestion.

 

[JLChicago]

I fixed the conversion for you. It was due to an idiosyncrasy in the Wikipedia conversion function; if the input value is a multiple of 10, it assumes the output should be rounded to the nearest "10".

Which is how they taught me in first year engineering school at the University of Illinois, a concept called significant digits.

 

[joelkfla]

Which is how they taught me in first year engineering school at the University of Illinois, a concept called significant digits.

But a digit being zero doesn't automatically mean it's not significant. There's a 10% chance that the trailing significant digit will be a zero.

 

[JLChicago]

But a digit being zero doesn't automatically mean it's not significant. There's a 10% chance that the trailing significant digit will be a zero.

Totally agree. It’s context sensitive.

 

[UserNameRequired]

But a digit being zero doesn't automatically mean it's not significant. There's a 10% chance that the trailing significant digit will be a zero.

There is a 100% chance it is significant if it had the overbar like 10꛱ , or the following decimal, 10. It should really not be significant if it is just written 10 Many a multiple choice question in engineering class tests are designed specifically to give you the opportunity to neglect paying attention to this detail

 

[joelkfla]

There is a 100% chance it is significant if it had the overbar like 10꛱ , or the following decimal, 10. It should really not be significant if it is just written 10 Many a multiple choice question in engineering class tests are designed specifically to give you the opportunity to neglect paying attention to this detail

I don't know the technicalities, but we're talking about Wikipedia editors here, who are just random people, probably with some computer aptitude but little to no technical training. When the average man on the street writes the number "10", chances are he doesn't mean "somewhere between 5 & 14".

 

[JLChicago]

There is a 100% chance it is significant if it had the overbar like 10꛱ , or the following decimal, 10. It should really not be significant if it is just written 10 Many a multiple choice question in engineering class tests are designed specifically to give you the opportunity to neglect paying attention to this detail

I personally use the decimal. I had forgotten the overbar. Can’t recall when the last time I saw it used except for yours today. Thanks for the nostalgia.

 

[sttom]

Well, that means that the real drive time (including bathroom breaks, meals, and possibly a fueling stop) is probably 5 hours or so. (That is, if one keeps to the speed limit ) Besides, given the traffic in the Chicago area, it probably takes an hour just to drive from the Loop to the edge of the suburbs.

I tend to find Google drive times to be a bit overly optimistic.

That is one thing that I can't put into words about how much I dislike Google Maps. It always assumes the absolute best driving conditions when you are in a car, but seems assumes all public transit goes 25 mph no matter what. Its driving directions are also terrible, I once went out the "wrong" side of a parking lot and it chose a different path all together for the hell of it.

 

[daybeers]

That is one thing that I can't put into words about how much I dislike Google Maps. It always assumes the absolute best driving conditions when you are in a car, but seems assumes all public transit goes 25 mph no matter what. Its driving directions are also terrible, I once went out the "wrong" side of a parking lot and it chose a different path all together for the hell of it.

It seems to me this has gotten worse over the past few years since Google aquired Waze and has been slowly implementing some of the other app's tech in both. I wish it was less agressive when choosing routes. If it recalculates cuz the GPS is being wonky, I want to go the same way.

The transit directions can be good but often have to juggle with the "depart at" feature; I alternate between it and Transit. In larger systems Transit has tons of data on how long it takes to transfer in large hubs and has more accurate bus predictions based on recent history and live data from current riders.

 

[cirdan]

But a digit being zero doesn't automatically mean it's not significant. There's a 10% chance that the trailing significant digit will be a zero.

So statistically 10% of railroad trackage should have a speed limit ending with 0.

This is clearly not the case. In fact most end with a 9.

 

[cirdan]

But a digit being zero doesn't automatically mean it's not significant. There's a 10% chance that the trailing significant digit will be a zero.

What does significant mean?

If a train is doing 58 on a line with a 59 speed limit, would the dispatcher call the engineer to ask why he's going slow?

I guess not. So this is a rounding error and not significant

 

[joelkfla]

What does significant mean?

If a train is doing 58 on a line with a 59 speed limit, would the dispatcher call the engineer to ask why he's going slow?

I guess not. So this is a rounding error and not significant

"Significant digits" is a mathematical term denoting the precision of calculations. It has nothing to do with common usage of numbers.

 

[jis]

So statistically 10% of railroad trackage should have a speed limit ending with 0.

This is clearly not the case. In fact most end with a 9.

GIGO analysis. Railroad speed limits are hardly and random distribution, so of course a conjecture based on the assumption that the distribution is random does not hold

 

[Larry H.]

I have often wondered how Amtrak got to the point of being far longer for trips than the previous railroads were able to make them. I remember taking the Panama Limited from Chicago leaving it seems like around 6PM and being in New Orleans about 8am..Now it doesn't get in till late afternoon and still leaves in the evening but a few hours later.

 

[joelkfla]

I have often wondered how Amtrak got to the point of being far longer for trips than the previous railroads were able to make them. I remember taking the Panama Limited from Chicago leaving it seems like around 6PM and being in New Orleans about 8am..Now it doesn't get in till late afternoon and still leaves in the evening but a few hours later.

The operating railroads generally weren't dependent upon the tender mercies of another railroad's dispatchers.

 

[neroden]

The operating railroads generally weren't dependent upon the tender mercies of another railroad's dispatchers.

On top of that, dispatchers were cooperative. If a train was on another host railroad's rails, the host railroad knew it would look bad if they delayed the "foreign" train.

The open, criminal hostility to passenger trains which has been exhibited by certain "freight" railroad managements is an aberration. I think throwing a few of them in federal prison would probably solve the problem. BNSF got better with *one* change in CEO, and so did CP.

Putting CSX's CEO in prison for delaying trains would probably fix CSX, and probably convince CN to straighten up and fly right too.

 

[John Bredin]

I should think additional factors would be:

*the 79mph speed limit. I've heard that Illinois Central passenger trains often operated around 100mph.

*track conditions that further reduce speed limits. A freight railroad will maintain its track to a level (class?) suitable for its fastest freights but (I imagine) not to the degree that passenger trains can go top-speed, especially if the line is not often used by intermodal trains.

 

[George Harris]

So statistically 10% of railroad trackage should have a speed limit ending with 0.

This is clearly not the case. In fact most end with a 9.

(. . . most end with a 9.) This is not at all true. These are for maximum speeds related to federal signal and train control requirements where the law states either "80 mph or faster" or "60 mph or faster for passenger trains" and "50 mph or faster for freight trains." This is why you see those 79 mph or 59/49 mph speed limits as line maximums for lines where these legal requirements govern. Speed limits based on curves, track conditions, or other requirements are usually stated in 5 mph increments.

 

[George Harris]

I have often wondered how Amtrak got to the point of being far longer for trips than the previous railroads were able to make them. I remember taking the Panama Limited from Chicago leaving it seems like around 6PM and being in New Orleans about 8am..Now it doesn't get in till late afternoon and still leaves in the evening but a few hours later.

Didn't do quite that good. I was a regular rider on a segment of the City of New Orleans during the early 1960's and their time was 16 1/2 hours end to end. The Panama was about the same in run time, and with that you had drop off sleepers at Carbondale IL (to/from St. Louis), Memphis and for while at Jackson MS. Not the Panama, but from memory, the northbound City left New Orleans at 7:00am, Memphis at 2:00pm and got to Chicago at 11:30pm. I will look up the exact times for the Panama later. I think it was 4:30pm departure and 9:00am arrival on both ends. Back to the CNO of that time: On one holiday weekend that I rode, I think Thanksgiving, they loaded 4 coaches sitting in Memphis before the NB arrival, and put them in the City when it got there, plus adding another unit on the front end, all with only a slight stretch in a nominal 10 minute station stop. I think the train was something like 20 to 22 cars plus four engines.

 

[joelkfla]

I think the train was something like 20 to 22 cars plus four engines.

... 3 conductors, and 25 sacks of mail.