Odd delay on #6 east of DEN (12/17/19)

[Jacob Goes By Jack]

I am on the eastbound CZ (#6) just east of Denver and about an hour? ago we suddenly stopped, with an announcement that they were looking into a mechanical issue and had to reboot the computers and check the brakes. Power went out fairly briefly, within 15-20 minutes we were rolling again.

Then just a few minutes later we suddenly stopped again and they announced they still need to fix the issue, they need to reboot the computers and check the brakes again and it was not fixed the first time. We are still stopped and the power is still out, it's been much longer this time (30-40 minutes?)

Do any of you have any insight/experience about what is going on? Chance they fix the root cause, or at least find a workaround?

Thanks,
Jack

 

[Jacob Goes By Jack]

Finally started to roll about 10 minutes ago. Looks to be for good this time, knock on wood.

 

[the_traveler]

I was on a Regional about 10 years ago that just left Old Saybrook. Within minutes of departure, it stopped and they needed to reboot the locomotive.

They got it going, but then it stopped and they needed to reboot it again. And again. And again. And ...

By the time it reached New London - the next station - well over an hour or 2 later (normally about 20-30 minutes), they took it out of service and put passengers on other trains. It was holding up the trains behind it.

 

[F900ElCapitan]

Sounds like it’s most likely a Positive Train Control (PTC) issue. If the computer isn’t 100% happy it’ll initiate an emergency brake until all is well. This is the outcome of when Congress sticks their nose in something they know nothing about and mandate a system (PTC) that isn’t ready for prime time.

 

[neroden]

The fact is that off-the-shelf, working PTC was available -- it's called ETCS/ERTMS -- but the freight railroads were seduced by the chimera of "GPS-based systems" and decided to totally reinvent the wheel on PTC. That is actually what caused the problems with PTC deployment.

China just mandated ETCS/ERTMS (though they renamed it to CTCS).

So if anything the problem is that Congress was not prescriptive enough. By saying "oh, use any system which meets these requirements" they encouraged the freight railroads to waste time and money trying to cheap out. If they'd flat-out mandated adoption of ETCS/ERTMS, which was already debugged in Switzerland, it would all have gone faster.

 

[desertflyer]

I had PTC trouble leaving Denver on 6 in the switchover from UP to BNSF last September. The delay was very similar to what OP described.

 

[me_little_me]

They run Windows.So periodically they get the blue screen of death.

 

[Sauve850]

Leaving Chi to Was on the CL this past September we were not very far out of the station when we stopped. I listened on scanner and it was a PTC issue. 15-20 minutes later we got permission to proceed?

 

[Thirdrail7]

It sounds more like a locomotive problem and they pulled the knife switch to reboot but I wasn't there. PTC usually causes penalty applications as opposed to emergency applications. Additionally, PTC issues typically don't affect the HEP.