CSX railroad computers are down has this really stopped trains from Fla and Chicago to Maine?

Question

Are we too dependant on computers

Answer 1

Yeah, we are but that is the way it is

without the computers, they can't generate a wheel report, the signals wont work, can't get track warrants, everything eventually grinds to a halt.

Recently someone cut a fiber optics cable 500 miles away on our line and nothing could move until it was repaired.

There are provisions for backup systems in the rule books but it depends on the radios and telephones working so you can hand copy all the paperwork. It would work for a few trains on a low density line, that's all.

Answer 2

It's not so much the computers but the centralisation of duties. I remember a lightning strike in Jacksonville, FL, caused loss of telecommunications links and thus cancellation of commuter trains in Chicago. Naturally, the Chicago commuters could not understand why something happening 1000 miles away would affect their 10 mile commute home. You can make your dispatching centre as bomb proof and secure as you like but once those telecoms are outside the building, they're at the mercy of Mother Nature. And idiots on diggers driving through cables.

What was more worrying was an internet virus knocked out a load of dispatching computers. Why on earth safety-related computers were hooked up to the internet, I have no idea. It certainly isn't allowed in other countries where I work on signalling...

Answer 3

The dispatchers have a backup system so trains still run.