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> thought that trucking industry is changed forever What I find really crazy is that most trains are still driven by humans.
by CodesInChaos 1y ago
> thought that trucking industry is changed forever
What I find really crazy is that most trains are still driven by humans.
- tra3 1y agoI think it's the matter of scale. Way more truck drivers than locomotive engineers.
- blueside 1y agoonly 2 people (engineer and conductor) for an entire train that is over a mile long seems about right to me though
- 1718627440 1y agoMost work is actually in oversight and getting the train to run when parts fail. When running millions of machines 24/7 there is always a failing part. Also understanding gesticulation humans and running wildlife is not yet (fully) automatable.
- mulmen 1y agoHow does a human conductor stop a train from hitting a deer? Do they spot it from 3 miles away? The THSR I rode solved the wildlife problems with a big windshield wiper. Not sure what else there is to do. It’s a train.
- dboreham 1y agoAt least one train has crashed with fatalities due to hitting a cow.
- BenjiWiebe 1y agoCan you provide a reference? That's difficult to believe. Was this a diesel locomotive pulling a freight train or was it something smaller/lighter?
- 1718627440 1y agoNot your correspondent, but trains are quite easy to derail, because they work by sliding orthogonality over the rail, and because otherwise there are way worse crashes. The cow might not have caused the fatalities directly, but derailment, and a fast train crashing unbound through the landscape has a lot of kinetic energy.
- BenjiWiebe 1y agoI decided to do a little searching myself, now that I'm at my PC. In 1984 there was 13 killed from derailment from hitting a cow, but that was a "push-pull" train and it wasn't the locomotive that hit the cow, but a much lighter "control car".[1] Another case where the train hit a cow and launched it through the air, and it struck and killed someone.[2] Also, in [1] there weren't any cowcatchers on the train either. All the trains (besides possibly an old steam locomotive, IDR) that I've seen in my life have cowcatchers and also a locomotive in the lead. [1] https://mx-schroeder.medium.com/unholy-cow-the-1984-polmont-scotland-train-derailment-b4159a3b94e8 https://mx-schroeder.medium.com/unholy-cow-the-1984-polmont-... [2] https://morningsidekick.com/indian-man-killed-in-freak-traincowurination-accident/ https://morningsidekick.com/indian-man-killed-in-freak-train...
- 1718627440 1y agoWell all the locomotives I see daily, that are not steam locomotives from 50 years ago, don't have cowcatchers. Instead they are designed that, in case of a frontal collision with another train, they push each other to the side, so that there will be less deaths. What I remember is a collision of a high speed train with sheep in a tunnel. (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenbahnunfall_im_Landr%C3%BCckentunnel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenbahnunfall_im_Landr%C3%BC...) The collision itself only was with a single sheep.
- BenjiWiebe 1y agoOops you're right about cowcatchers. It's more like a plow-shaped bumper.
- 1718627440 1y agoThe goto is to scare the animal or human away with the horn.
- BurningFrog 1y agoMuch of that is about union power more than tech maturity.