posted
I remember reading an article several years ago of how long it took the average freight train to move through Chicago (several days). Well, it seems the railroads have finally gotten together and coordinate train movements through the many at-grade junctions and crossings. The result is an impressive browser-based SVG-graphics with secure login allowing one to view the real time movements of most of the railroads in the Chicago area - UP, BNSF, etc, showing mostly the same information as what the dispatchers see. I was watching a live feed at Railtex (a trade exhibition) but being UK lunchtime, it was a little early to do any Amtrak-spotting.
Anyway, here's a rather blurred mobile phone picture of what I believe was the Cicero area, zoomed at the highest detail. At the opposite level of zoom, the entire Chicago area can be seen.
posted
This has actually been in service since sometime in 2008. Ansaldo (actually their GRS operation in the US) built an interface so that data from all the different train dispatching systems used by the railroads serving Chicago could be displayed all in one place. It's been available on a secure server for some time.
It's a wonderful idea, as it allows dispatchers on each railroad to check status of junctions and interchanges before sending trains through them.
Posts: 614 | From: Merchantville, NJ. USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
As I understand it, it was rolled out in phases rather than the whole lot at one time. The various railroad's dispatching systems had to be configured to send their data to the secure server in a way that each end understood. I'm not privvy to the protocol - whether it's the secure server that understands multiple protocols, or the railroad computers converting it to the secure server's preferred format. Not all information is currently transmitted but in theory even things like who the engineer and conductors are, and how much duty time they have remaining can be displayed (those fields were blank). It does show train IDs though, from where origin, destination, and train types can be determined. Also train length in some cases.
Geoff M.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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