I wonder how the metro gets by without the controllers talking to the
drivers. Oh wait.

Tony P

On Thursday, 9 March 2023 at 09:42:03 UTC+11peterm...@... wrote:

> COntroller duplication, update one and leave the standby on the previous

> software version and fail over to the older version.

>

>

> On Thursday, 9 March 2023 at 09:01:12 UTC+11 Matthew Geier wrote:

>

>> On Wed, 8 Mar 2023 at 17:39, Tony Galloway a...@...> wrote:

>>

>>> Wasn’t that long ago there was no 2-way radio, digital or otherwise, and

>>> trains ran just fine.

>>>

>>> Now everything stops without it - what a joke.

>>>

>>> Must be that wonderful ever onwards “march of progress” that makes

>>> everything work so much better.

>>>

>>> Someone (a group of managers more like it) has written the operation of

>> the train radio system into the SMS and made it a 'vital' system so if that

>> system is not operational, they are not meeting all requirements for 'safe

>> operation'.

>> Never mind the railways ran for 100 years without radios and fancy

>> digital trunked comms systems.

>>

>> Seems the concept of a driver looking out the front window and observing

>> the status of the signal lamps beside the track is no longer considered

>> 'safe'.

>> There was no suggestion that interlockings had failed, or the actual

>> train control systems were down, what they lost was the network-wide

>> GSM-R-based train radio system. They couldn't talk between operations

>> control and trains in the field.

>>

>> I observed the Cronulla branch being operated as a shuttle during the

>> outage, showing some initiative on the part of Sutherland station master to

>> take local control of the Cronulla branch. I've seen reports that Blacktown

>> did the same for the Richmond branch.

>> I just hope the relevant staff now don't get reprimanded for 'unsafe

>> operations' for showing some initiative to keep things running. Not all

>> station staff are safe working qualified anymore - I do wonder how they

>> will formally withdraw the qualifications from SMs that still hold safe

>> working qualifications, preventing any further local control initiative

>> taking on their part again.

>>

>> They did a software update of the train radio controllers on the weekend.

>> I suspect that update wasn't tested under a full load of a busy system - or

>> tested long enough - the new software having a 'slow leak', so that it only

>> works for a few days - then falls over.

>> Vital systems should have redundant controllers with the software of each

>> written by different teams so that the two don't have the same bugs. But

>> that's expensive - doing all your R&D twice.

>>

>>