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Amtrak Installing Cameras To Watch Train Engineers
An anonymous reader writes: In the aftermath of the derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago, the company has caved to demands that it install video cameras to monitor and record the actions of the engineers driving their trains. The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending such cameras for the past five years. Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman says the cameras will improve train safety, though the engineers' union disagrees. In 2013, the union's president said, "Installation of cameras will provide the public nothing more than a false sense of security. More than a century of research establishes that monitoring workers actually reduces the ability to perform complex tasks, such as operating a train, because of the distractive effect."
They used to be called engineers in the UK, in the early days, then the term fell out of use. The original term was "engine-man". BBC articles are so helpful.
While I'm not fully aware of the details of this story, it really seems to me that they are only looking to put the blame on the weakest side, which is obviously the workers. Even if the guy did screw up, it would be ridiculous to think a camera would be capable of preventing an accident. Where are the technical failsafes to limit the train's speed? Guess true security updates have been eaten by their desire for profit and instead been replaced with cheap cameras so they can say "oh no, we were watching the guy but he was a terrorist who shut down the camera" or any other crap to get their fat a$$es out of the way.
"I decided I could write something better than everything out there in two weeks. And I was right." - Linus Torvalds
I can understand the engineer's union attitude towards this. Would YOU want a camera on you all day? Do we really need to know whether the engineer picks his nose? OTOH it really should deter people from, e.g., talking on the phone while they're supposed to be driving. To balance the preventive threat and the privacy issue, the video should be under seal somehow, and wiped after a few days - unwatched! - if nothing interesting happened that day. Maybe an hour of each person gets viewed once a week or so, which hour and which day chosen at random, just like drivers never knowing when there's a police car sitting on the shoulder around a bend.
Most train engineers are not federal employees.
It is a publicly funded private corporation.
Kinda like the post office, or maybe Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac would be a better analogy.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Maybe install the friggin speed arrestors that should have been in that particular train back in 2012. I'd rather KNOW that the passengers are safe, instead of being able to watch the engineer fall asleep at the switch after the fact.
You are aware that plenty of people are monitored for their entire shift in much less safety critical jobs, like bank tellers, grocery or retail store cashiers, dock workers, etc, yes? As to the speed being controlled by computer, they've been working on that for some time, but apparently the radio network to convey all the necessary information to the control box is massively behind schedule.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Ah, there it is. The obligatory US bash. Got it in early, too.
at best, if it shows that the engineer did something wrong and it turns out they were trained to do that wrong thing, the training can be fixed. More likely however it's just to have a record of what the engineer did in their final moments.
Why do you care?
It's sad that the rest of the world still feels the need to match us while acting like we are crap.
More than a century of research establishes that monitoring workers actually reduces the ability to perform complex tasks, such as operating a train, because of the distractive effect.
Citation please? I'm an industrial engineer professionally and monitoring of workers is a pretty big part of my professional life. I'm not aware of any credible evidence that as a general principle that monitoring workers reduces ability to perform tasks. Perhaps a clumsy system in specific circumstances but claims of any "distracting effect" sound like union representative talking points rather than actual scientific facts. In fact in my experience the opposite is typically true. I find that people tend to be more vigilant when they are aware they are being monitored as a general rule. Some people dislike it but as long as they aren't interrupted the monitoring is rarely actually distracting. Pilots in aircraft have everything they say monitored and yet somehow they manage to operate a vehicle that is even more complex than a train quite competently.
Speaking as someone who spent three and a half years working on Positive Train Control software, it's not as simple as throwing a GPS on the train.
There are a huge number of operating rules that must be enforced besides just a base speed limit. Not only does every mile of track have a speed limit that can vary widely, every type of train has a maximum safe operating speed that must also be considered. Then there are all the temporary speed limits that the computer has to know about. If there's a work crew out on the tracks, they drop the speed limit. If there's damage to the track, they drop the speed limit. etc. Then there are all the signals along the route. There's half a dozen different types across the country depending on what has been upgraded and what hasn't and they all govern how fast you are allowed to go at that location at that time. Then you have to throw in all of the other things along the track like grade crossings and switches. There's a bunch of different types of each and they all have different rules on what you have to do when you approach them. To top it off, you can't go anywhere until a dispatcher grants you authority to run on the track. And that's done in any of a dozen different ways depending on who owns the track and where it is.
Did I mention that the operating rules are different for each railroad? They are and you have to make sure you follow the right rules.
Then you can have the added complexity of interoperability. Every railroad, by contract, is allowed to operate on each others track. They even contract out engineers between each other. So you can have a BNSF engineer operating a CSX locomotive on UP track. And you have to have to figure out which rules apply in that case because they're different than an Amtrak engineer operating the same CSX locomotive on the same UP track. Or a BNSF engineer operating a KCS locomotive on UP track.
Then when you think you have that all figured out, throw in the fact that we have agreements with Canada that let our trains run back and forth between two countries.
Once you have all of that complexity, you have to be able to predict how long it takes to slow a train down so you know how far back you have to get off the throttle and/or hit the brakes. That calculation is impacted by the number of cars in the train, the weight of the cars, the grade of the track, the curves you're riding on, and even how long it takes for the air pressure to be let out of the brake line (a long time in a mile long train). There's a ton of calculus being done by the computer several times a second to keep an accurate estimation of your braking curve. Beyond that, the computer has to give the engineer a warning before cutting in and doing his job for him. So you have to predict the stopping distance with the added distance you'd travel if you wait a specified time after warning but before you enforce the stop.
Now, you have all of that. Then you have to factor in that your GPS isn't always accurate so you can't always count on the fact that it will tell you precisely where you are. Running through a tunnel cuts off your GPS feed. As you get towards the mouth of the tunnel, you get a lot of multipath errors that make your GPS location jump around pretty damn fast so you have to program the computer to account for it. The backup is the wheel tachometer that lets the computer know how fast the train is going and you can assume that a train isn't going to be jumping off the tracks 500 feet into a field to the left so that does make the job a little easier. But just when you think you've solved the problem, you have to deal with the fact that the diameter of the wheel isn't 100% constant. Sure, it's a steel wheel and it doesn't change rapidly. But it does wear down as the train is driven. So you have to keep calibrating the wheel diameter over the miles because even a small variation can lead to a significant position error over a long trip. A 0.1% error over a 1,000 mile trip will have you a mile off from where you really are. And 1,000 mile trips are a daily occurrence with trains.
So yeah, it's not as easy as just throwing a GPS on your locomotive and calling it good.
You say that as if PTC has been installed and fully vetted. I can tell you from personal experience that the technology is still years away from being a reliable safety system. I used to work for the leading company that's building it for Amtrak and all the other major railroads.
No, you don't. You see what we choose to show you, and you react in precisely the way we want and expect you to react. And you help us by telling yourself that it's your idea.
Dunno - it's pretty hard to account for why the dude was doing 100+ mph on a 50mph curve.
Not saying it's his fault, but at least the camera would have absolved/proven any culpability on his part almost immediately.
Now normally, cameras would be a bad idea IMHO, but this is a public service operated by public funds.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Uh, anyone that has ever been involved in a driver facing camera camera system says their decent at improving safety, if managed correctly.
I say this as the IT manager of the storage system for the camera data of a fleet of taxi's. You review the cameras for safety issues before an incident occurs. The personnel management at this particular company does a very good job at only using the camera reviews to look for safety issues, other issues seen on safety reviews do not get turned in to the HR department. These reviews have dramatically dropped cell phone usage in public transport vehicles while moving at this particular company. I don't have good accident statistics at this time to tell you if it has made a huge difference, and that can vary greatly by weather events per year (we had two extremely dry years, then this year has been very wet and was icy during the winter).
Last time I read about it, it's estimated that PTC will only stop about 40% of the accidents.
Thing is, as complicated as PTC really is, it's still the low hanging fruit that's the easier problem to solve than most of the rest. And considering that it will save lives, it's worth it in the long term.
Track and equipment maintenance standards being beefed up will account for another chunk. But you're right. It's really difficult to plan for that dipshit who stops on the tracks around a blind corner.
He's obviously not talking about freight, he's talking about passenger transportation. Since the US spans a continent, and has large ports on both coasts, and also because it produces a lot of raw materials for export (such as coal), it's no surprise it does a lot of freight hauling on railroads. But that doesn't help people who need to get somewhere. The days of hobos are long past.
No, cameras are never a bad idea for public-service employees. A good example of this is bus drivers. All the public buses I've taken in recent years had cameras on board, showing both the drivers and the passengers, along with signs warning that assaulting a bus driver carries a stiff prison sentence. The cameras are ostensibly to protect the drivers from bad passengers, but they obviously can also be used to see what the driver was doing in case of a crash, which is a good thing.
There isn't much difference between a train driver and a bus driver, except that the train driver doesn't have to interact with the public/passengers. There's no good reason at all to not have their activities recorded on camera while they're working.
The USPS *is* a government entity. It's wholly owned by the US Government, therefore it's a government entity. It's largely run like a private company, but not entirely; Congress actually has a lot of say in its operations. The USPS isn't allowed to change the days they deliver mail, for instance, without Congressional approval. (They tried to eliminate delivery for one day a week not long ago and Congress refused.)
I don't here many saying it's not *possible* only that it is not practical and cost effective.
Sure, you want automated trains, we can do that, but remember that our rail road system is a patch work of private and public companies which runs on a regulation scheme that was largely fleshed out before the turn of the 20th century (over 100 years ago). Plus, the incentive for automation by the rail roads would be largely cost, unless the regulations are forcing them into it. The salaries of the engineer and conductor on a train are a pittance compared to the total operating costs of the train, so there is little incentive to automate. Just keep the human in the loop, it's cheaper in the short term. Rail Roads run on razor thin margins... So profit today is very important.
The reason we are having this "camera" discussion is more about political points than actually trying to help the system get safer. Cameras won't help anything, except the political fortunes of those suggesting them. The vast majority of fatal accidents involving trains will never be prevented by cameras OR automation because they have to do with vehicles being on the tracks at crossings when the train arrives. You might have great video of the accident, or get the breaks applied a few milliseconds sooner with automation, but neither will prevent people getting killed..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If the engineers' concentration is so fragile that they are going to be distracted by a camera, they are obviously not the right people to be operating complex machinery.
They suffer from a condition called "being human". It causes occasional failures in an otherwise operational controller-human, some very small percentage of the time. Even the highest-quality controller-humans have a non-zero failure rate.
Maybe we should just replace them with automation and run the trains remotely. They could keep one engineer per train to engage the manual override in the event that someone hacks the control infrastructure and tries to do Bad Things(tm) to the trains.
That is actually a pretty good idea, and it's more or less what PTC is intended to do, at least as far as the "avoid accidents" part of the job is concerned. Automating things further than that is also possible, although probably not really necessary.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Dunno - it's pretty hard to account for why the dude was doing 100+ mph on a 50mph curve.
Oh, I could probably imagine a few scenarios. Probably the most likely being that dispatch told him to make up some time.
Ultimately, the engineer is responsible for the safety of the passengers, but if he chose to obey the speed limit when he was told to get there faster, the fact that he saved all those people will be of little consolation when he gets fired and can't get hired on anywhere else because 1) there isn't anyone else and 2) he disobeyed a direct order from dispatch.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The right doesn't "want stuff" taken from other people. They want to earn it.
They don't want stuff taken from other people? Bullshit. They just want the private sector to do the taking instead of the public sector. The right is all about removing restrictions from banks, deregulating industries, allowing companies to dump whatever they want into our streams, lakes and air, etc. They very much want to take things and they don't want to pay taxes so they don't have to give anything back. They are very happy to take away your rights if they don't like what you do. They want to take away women's reproductive rights. If you are an atheist they're very eager to take away your freedom to avoid organized religion. If you are gay they want to take away your right to love whomever you want. They're very eager to spend an absurd amount of money on defense and instead of taxing an appropriate amount they instead borrow the money burdening future generations.
The right doesn't take stuff? Give me a break...
Their concern is more to do with how people react under stressful situations when snap decisions are required. Knowing that your every move is being recorded and will be intensely scrutinized after the fact can alter those decisions.
That's a cop-out if I've ever heard one. Airline pilots have everything they say and every interaction with the controls recorded on every flight and somehow they manage to execute their duties quite well even in crash situations. If a train engineer is doing something they aren't supposed to be doing then they should damn well expect to get a spanking for it. Any equivocation on this point is simply trying to weasel out of being responsible for their actions.
Here they call them rockstar brogrammers
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Well, speaking of Amtrak employee accountability, I have a story about that. A few years ago my family took a train ride across the country. When we changed trains in Chicago I noticed that the reading light in my sleeping compartment was stuck on, which of course was bad if I wanted to actually sleep. I found the friendly and helpful attendant and reported it, and her reaction was like watching a balloon deflate.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"If we report damage they take it out of our wages," she said.
"What! What do you mean take it out of your wages?" I asked.
"If a car is damaged under my watch I have to pay for it," she said.
"Well," I said, taking out my swiss army knife, "I guess there's nothing to see here."
I have to say that I've never encountered such a nice, enthusiastic, friendly group of people with such an abysmally low morale as the crew of a cross-country train. With passengers they're great, but all through the trip I'd see two or three congregated having low muttered conversations. It didn't take me long to figure out they were talking about management. And while the experience was wonderful, the equipment was in horrible shape. It was like traveling in a third world country.
With management that bad, more data doesn't equal more accountability and better performance. It means scapegoating.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes, the American Exceptionalist Butthurt. Even when your best is half what other countries with far less money can do....'Murica! Fuck yeah!
It is sad how other countries know so little about the U.S. That they take the behavior of a small minority of people in a couple of states and try to define the entire nation by it.
You do realize there are 50 whole states in the union, right?
Probably because we don't want to spend 7 days going from LA to NY with 19th century technology when we can do it in less than 0.5 days using 20th century technology.
Or if it's only 300 miles away we still prefer a car because we can depart and return on whatever schedule we want, and when we get there we have our own self provided means of transportation that we can use on-demand instead of paying up the ass for a taxi or a rental car.
It's called being practical, and that's why we don't give a shit about passenger rails.
You have no clue. I've been running Amtrak trains for 18 years. There is no intentional speeding, over 10mph and you lose your federally issued lisence for 30 days, second time you get caught 6 months and probably won't have a job to come back to. That's all laid out in the CFR. Everything is recorded, no one would dare. Remember we mess up and we're right there in an accident with you. Here's what I assume happened from my experience. He was newish to that route, I've read 2 -3 weeks, thought he was somewhere else, sped up, realized it and dumped the brakes. It takes years to know a route.
Nascar Race? You mean because they "raise" the flag and sing the National Anthem before the race and usually launch fireworks after it? Nearly every sporting event in the US starts with raising the flag and singing the National Anthem. I've been told Toronto (Ontario, Canada) Blue Jays (Major League Baseball) games are preceded by two national anthems. I see a few Canadian flags here in Wisconsin along with some Swedish and Norwegian ones as well. Plenty of Mexican ones flying in early May. I haven't heard of anyone getting to upset by it.
There's a reason they play the National Anthem of the winners for the Olympics. You shouldn't be ashamed of your Anthem or boo it, ever. Maybe ignoring it makes sense (it can be a bit "over the top" sometimes) but booing should definitely be considered bad form.
Just because England doesn't do it doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't do it.
Once again we all fall victim to bad generalities based upon our own perspectives, rather than actually speaking about things we know.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
It is sad how other countries know so little about the U.S. That they take the behavior of a small minority of people in a couple of states and try to define the entire nation by it.
Yeah, just like the small minority of Muslims who burn American Flags.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
how about you pay for a few of your immoral wars instead of trying to blame your victims. then you can pretend you are equipped to talk about earning anything.
if you can't directly and personally benefit from something, you are going to whine about having to support it.