Amtrak ACS-64 Sprinter Discussion

I have no idea. I dont write the software.

ACeInTheHole wrote:

ApproachMedium wrote:

ACeInTheHole wrote:601 apparently decided that it wanted to take this weekend off, laying down in the CP ELMORA area on todays westbound Pennsyvlanian.. Requiring 619 to come to the rescue. The train arrived in Philadelphia 2' 45" late.

Speed sensor failure. And another disadvantage to these over the HHP and meatballs there is no way to bypass any of the onboard sensors should one fail.

Is thete a way thqt sensor bypasses and the like can be added in a future software update?

Generally the answer to this is "yes" from a technical POV.

The question though is can you get the approval to do so.

It's sorta like driving with your "Check engine" light on. If the manufacturer thinks they're smarter than you, they'd shut down the car. Others may think the driver can exhibit judgement to ignore the light and keep driving.

Here it sounds like someone determined the engineers don't have enough judgment to make that decision.
And to be fair, on a new, complex engine w/o all the failure modes known, etc, that might be a fair call.

As more data is collected, one would hope they could loosen the parameters in some cases.

Also conceivable that it could be done from a service center, via a mobile data connection.I know of modern European trucks here, whereby the driver gets a warning light, pulls over and plugs the laptop in. All dianogstics and resetting is then by a service center in Germany.

No, what happened here is more people overlooked the fact that things break and nothing works perfectly in the real world. Thats one thing Amtrak did right when the HHP was engineered, along with the HST. ANYTHING that can fail or go wrong on those engines can somehow be bypassed to get the train going again. The ACS is like driving a car with the hood bolted shut. You know there is something wrong, but you cant do anything about it. The engine does deal with propulsion isolation (failed power modules, traction motors etc.) internally on its own with no problems, but not sensors or other small nonsense.

That could well be true, but in todays world, does a locomotive engineer want to take responsibility for overriding a sensor?
I used to be a maintenance engineer in a slaughterhouse that basically had a long conveyor chain from end to end. if something went wrong, microswitches would sense extra load on the chain and shut the power down. starting it up again was just a matter of climbing up and pushing the reset on the microswitch. But only the engineers were allowed to reset it. Even the floor supervisors wern't allowed to touch them. Obstinately the reason was to protect the chain from damage. 9 times out of 10,the reason it stopped was someone felt like a break and yanked on a carcass to trip the microswitch. We would run down and check the whole chain, but we were making sure nobody was hooked up in the chain or worst. We wern't too worried about mechanical damage, if there was some the microswitch would just pop again. but we sure felt the responibilty to make sure no one was hurt.

You do not want the engineer messing with high voltage stuff which is why the propulsion system does its own isolating etc. But sensors there are rules and procedures they must follow if they have to bypass one. Every single GE rolling across north america has the ability to cut out(bypass) a failed speed sensor. The high speeds and HHPs did also. There is a good reason a locomotive engineer gets paid as well as they do. For their knowledge and skills and ability to deal with situations like this. Whats hilarious is the AEM-7 DC and AC motors automatically sense bad speed sensors, and will let you know. The DC you have to figure out what motor caused it, and the AC takes care of shutting it off for you. You are talking about 40 and 15 year old technology vs brand new.

The reality is a speed sensor failing is really not a big deal, and it shouldn't have to be made in to one. It fails you cut it out and that takes out the traction motor associated with it. You do a roll by to make sure the wheels are all turning and you go on your merry way.

My question is do the Eurosprinters have the same level of automation and if so do they operate reliably with it? I know some have said that the NEC is a challenging environment, but certainly Germany/Austria/Switzerland etc. have their share of weather extremes and less than perfect operating conditions.

ApproachMedium wrote:

David Benton wrote:That could well be true, but in todays world, does a locomotive engineer want to take responsibility for overriding a sensor?
I used to be a maintenance engineer in a slaughterhouse that basically had a long conveyor chain from end to end. if something went wrong, microswitches would sense extra load on the chain and shut the power down. starting it up again was just a matter of climbing up and pushing the reset on the microswitch. But only the engineers were allowed to reset it. Even the floor supervisors wern't allowed to touch them. Obstinately the reason was to protect the chain from damage. 9 times out of 10,the reason it stopped was someone felt like a break and yanked on a carcass to trip the microswitch. We would run down and check the whole chain, but we were making sure nobody was hooked up in the chain or worst. We wern't too worried about mechanical damage, if there was some the microswitch would just pop again. but we sure felt the responibilty to make sure no one was hurt.

You do not want the engineer messing with high voltage stuff which is why the propulsion system does its own isolating etc. But sensors there are rules and procedures they must follow if they have to bypass one. Every single GE rolling across north america has the ability to cut out(bypass) a failed speed sensor. The high speeds and HHPs did also. There is a good reason a locomotive engineer gets paid as well as they do. For their knowledge and skills and ability to deal with situations like this. Whats hilarious is the AEM-7 DC and AC motors automatically sense bad speed sensors, and will let you know. The DC you have to figure out what motor caused it, and the AC takes care of shutting it off for you. You are talking about 40 and 15 year old technology vs brand new.

The reality is a speed sensor failing is really not a big deal, and it shouldn't have to be made in to one. It fails you cut it out and that takes out the traction motor associated with it. You do a roll by to make sure the wheels are all turning and you go on your merry way.

Yeah, this is the sort of thing I was alluding to. This sounds like something that technically shouldn't be hard, it just takes someone up in management to trust the engineers to know how to do their job.

Better to limp along with one fewer traction motor spinning freely than not move at all.

Not to mention we aren't allowed to just cut things out without notifying the mechinical desk...

Matt Johnson wrote:My question is do the Eurosprinters have the same level of automation and if so do they operate reliably with it? I know some have said that the NEC is a challenging environment, but certainly Germany/Austria/Switzerland etc. have their share of weather extremes and less than perfect operating conditions.

I dont think those countries are operating 25 cycles overhead anymore. That seems to be the biggest challenge with anything thats brought over here is the frequency difference. Even the HHPs and high speeds behave MUCH better up north of the hells gate where everything is 60 cycles.

I dont think those countries are operating 25 cycles overhead anymore. That seems to be the biggest challenge with anything thats brought over here is the frequency difference. Even the HHPs and high speeds behave MUCH better up north of the hells gate where everything is 60 cycles.[/quote]
Is that why the HHPs were so frequent on the Boston trains?

how about Germany's 16 2/3 cycle ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_el ... ion_system" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think the reason they were so frequent was the all of the DC motors were not allowed to go north of new haven and a good majority of them couldnt even go past new york. That problem was rectified in 2011/2012 and now they can go everywhere.

It looks like only norway and sweeden still use that old 15 hz frequency in a few places.

Germany and Switzerland and Austria are almost entirely 16 2/3rds hz, as is most of Sweden and Norway.

SBB has about 3000 km on it (though my source doesn't list the amount they have of that that's actually 1.5kv DC, though I'm guessing that's very tiny)
BLS is another 400 km
DB is 19000 km
ÖBB is 3400 km
Jernbaneverket (Norway) has 2500 km
InfraNord (Sweden) is 7100 km

This was all from the European Railway Server. The site lists these as network lengths, so the actual numbers might be significantly higher.

All numbers are rounded to be approximate, but, there's basically (at least!) 35400 km / 22,000 miles of track out there that's on the 16 2/3rds system. That's the major players, there's probably a few I missed.

SNCF is the big 50hz operator in Europe.

I don't see why Siemens would have trouble making a locomotive at 25hz. If anything, the slightly higher frequency is an advantage in terms of a much smaller/lighter main transformer and DC link.

New Motor #631 was supposed to be delivered to WAS last week - has anyone seen it?
Andy