Or sooner, smarty gator. I happen to be a contractor for a different, unnamed Class 1 freight railroad, programming the computer back end of this same system. While I do not know what BNSF’s schedule is, a 3-year roll-out is happening with the railroad I work with, and there would be good reason to believe BNSF’s is similar.
Along with the benefits comes some vulnerability. Because of the near fire-drill pace of the deployment (and talking about 2018 for completion) the security measures may not be as good as they could be. Tampering with the system could at least defeat its purpose, and possibly bring a whole railroad’s trains to a halt because it is basically a “mother may I” architecture. If the system does not give the train the go-ahead, the train must stop.
Do you know what the system is being built on the old Mich. Central/MiDOT/Amtrak line that has been under construction for more than a year?
Are the crews able to communicate with each other to get an understanding of what going on? I’ve listened to radio traffic on the MRL in Mt. and it seems like the crews, dispatcher and MOW crews are in constant communication.
Along with the benefits comes some vulnerability.
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That was my concern as well.
So, how the hell could a dispatcher, or anybody else, arrange a head-on collision?