Automotive technology’s potential use in rolling stock

[BantamMenace]

The class 230 thread’s conversation about cruise control got me thinking about what other automotive technology could be deployed on the railways for driver convenience, safety, passenger comfort or otherwise.

Below is a list of my initial thoughts, I’d be keen to learn if any already exist:

- stop start engines.
- sign recognition.
- automatic emergency braking (low speed application on approach to buffers).
- adaptive cruise control, possibly in injunction with the sign recognition.
- vehicle to vehicle data sharing (rail condition instead of road and traffic condition).
- heated windscreen.
- automatic wipers.

 

[alangla]

Heated screens have been fitted since the 60s (look at the odd sheen in a photo of a class 47) and class 185s have a form of stop-start, I believe class 70s do too

 

[bastien]

I think the railways got 'cruise control' first, with ATO.

 

[t_star2001uk]

automatic emergency braking (low speed application on approach to buffers).

TPWS or ATP would cover this one...

 

[edwin_m]

Because of their higher speeds and lower braking rates, trains have to be able to run faster than they can stop within line of sight. So the type of adaptive cruise control that matches speed to the car in front wouldn't work with trains. Trains are moving towards ERTMS or other ATP systems which maintain separation to the train in front and also monitor compliance with (and ultimately replace) signals and speed restrictions, so this carries out several of the functions listed. Trains already have ABS too, though it's known as WSP.

I suggest the main item of automotive technology relevant to trains will be to take on board developments in battery technology which are now being pushed forward by the huge automotive market. As clear from various other threads (I don't want to start a parallel discussion here) we don't yet know what the future range of a battery-powered train will be, and therefore what place there might be for hydrogen trains and infill electrification.

 

[bastien]

Also note, the TVM signalling system deliberately keeps the driver operating the throttle. For reasons that are becoming only too obvious with these psuedo-autonomous cars.

 

[matacaster]

Comfortable seats???

 

[whhistle]

Also note, the TVM signalling system deliberately keeps the driver operating the throttle. For reasons that are becoming only too obvious with these psuedo-autonomous cars.

Like what? Crashing?
And yet nobody batters an eyelid when humans crash their cars :P

The real question should be whether computers crash cars more often than humans.

 

[bastien]

Comfortable seats???

Hmm. You could fit a *lot* of car seats in a train carriage. Specially if you stack them vertically. We might be onto something here.

 

[AM9]

Hmm. You could fit a *lot* of car seats in a train carriage. Specially if you stack them vertically. We might be onto something here.

I doubt if car seats would be durable enough for rail use.

 

[bastien]

I doubt if car seats would be durable enough for rail use.

They would be cheap to replace though.

 

[AndrewE]

They would be cheap to replace though.

How many dead seats do you tolerate in a coach before it is stopped for changing them (and what will the public's opinion of the service be in the meantime?) Or do you have a pile on standby and change one or more in each coach every night?
Railway stuff is expensive and heavy because it has to be robust. e.g. Old compartment luggage racks had to be strong enough for a couple of squaddies to sleep in them!

 

[BantamMenace]

Automotive seats are incredibly expensive as well. The company I work for produces cars that have heated seats and up to 18 different movement functions sometimes including massage which obviously wouldn’t be fitted to rail units but the seats are one of the single biggest expenses other than the engine in our cars.

 

[bastien]

Okay, how's about we use rear bench seats.

Automotive seats are incredibly expensive as well. The company I work for produces cars that have heated seats and up to 18 different movement functions sometimes including massage which obviously wouldn’t be fitted to rail units but the seats are one of the single biggest expenses other than the engine in our cars.

How does a rear bench seat compare to those, price wise? Could we use those instead?

(I'm joking here by the way, but people *do* often say car seats are comfier.)

 

[Rail Blues]

DBC retrofitted stop start technology to its Class 66s or at the very least planned to.

 

[squizzler]

I am unconvinced that there are that many meaningful technologies the railway can be adopting from the motor trade right now. With regard to alternative forms of propulsion, trains such as the classes Flex 769 and Vivarail 240 have overturned the railways handicap in rapidly adopting new technology.

The conventional wisdom says railways cannot innovate quickly because their vehicles last so long compared to motorcars. So rolling stock might see one technical leap forward every thirty years, whereas cars which are replaced every ten years will get three iterations in that period.

The re-engineering of older EMU's for various types of "self power" allows novel traction technology to be tried out using a depreciated passenger train. The large number of older yet technically sound EMU's coming off lease is allowing the ROSCO's to iterate very quickly with different technology and get it into service in real world conditions. The long service life of trains, a perceived weakness for technical innovation, is now turned into a strength.

The motor trade by comparison launches new cars all the time but cannot take back older cars and convert them to new types of fuels. Whilst no doubt there is lots of stuff that can be done with prototypes and laboratory testing, the motor manufacturer who wants to get real world consumer experience of alternative fuels has to design and test a new model of car, figure out the mass production, possibly re-tool a whole factory. This will lead to a cost that perhaps runs into the billions. They obviously have to be re-tooled when a new design is adopted, but to combine the commercial risk inherent with any new product with untried propulsion technologies is a gamble many will not be willing to take.

 

[AndrewE]

Okay, how's about we use rear bench seats.

How does a rear bench seat compare to those, price wise? Could we use those instead?

(I'm joking here by the way, but people *do* often say car seats are comfier.)

I think that if you did actually put car seats in a train you would immediately see how small and low they are in comparison with train seating. I have the impression that car seats are quite heavily reclined and (may) work where they are intended to be installed, but if you ever see one being sat on outside a car they look nothing like a comfortable seat.

 

[matacaster]

Automotive seats are incredibly expensive as well. The company I work for produces cars that have heated seats and up to 18 different movement functions sometimes including massage which obviously wouldn’t be fitted to rail units but the seats are one of the single biggest expenses other than the engine in our cars.

Why not a small number of massaging seats in first class perhaps with a suppliment. Seat may cost £2k or more, but £20 supplement would soon get money back. Relaxing massage on business long-distance trip sounds pretty good.

 

[edwin_m]

You see massaging seats at airports etc, operated by coin in the slot, although people tend to just sit in the comfy seat and not put any money in. So I guess some enterprising operator might give them a try on a train. However anything for rail use has to comply with a standards such as fire safety and crashworthiness which don't apply for static and automotive use, so that automatically make them bespoke and therefore most costly.

 

[furnessvale]

Be careful what you wish for. The last time we adopted automotive technology we ended up with Pacers!

 

[hooverboy]

DBC retrofitted stop start technology to its Class 66s or at the very least planned to.

yes I heard that too. mainly because freight spends hours at a time in sidings just idling and wasting fuel.

 

[hooverboy]

I am unconvinced that there are that many meaningful technologies the railway can be adopting from the motor trade right now. With regard to alternative forms of propulsion, trains such as the classes Flex 769 and Vivarail 240 have overturned the railways handicap in rapidly adopting new technology.

ONSTAR,GPS and such will certainly come to the railway.
The automotive sector is getting much,much bigger with realtime data from cars.period.

This is going to include black boxes in cars( driverless stuff is a way off yet,but still coming)
in the mean time, realtime transponders and pick up points will be used for active traffic management... AI control of traffic lights to ease congestion and alter timings to improve traffic flow etc etc.
The same will be true of rail. Signalling and telecoms is due for a HUGE shake up.

I've said on here several times before,GSM-R is ancient.

I currently work in mobile comms- as it happens development in 5G and automotive applications, so I'm in a position to know a fair bit about what's coming down the pipe,and the rail sector is WAY behind the curve...even compared to asia which have been rolling out LTE-R on their railway since 2017.

 

[squizzler]

ONSTAR,GPS and such will certainly come to the railway.
The automotive sector is getting much,much bigger with realtime data from cars.period.

This is going to include black boxes in cars( driverless stuff is a way off yet,but still coming)
in the mean time, realtime transponders and pick up points will be used for active traffic management... AI control of traffic lights to ease congestion and alter timings to improve traffic flow etc etc.
The same will be true of rail. Signalling and telecoms is due for a HUGE shake up.

I've said on here several times before,GSM-R is ancient.

I currently work in mobile comms- as it happens development in 5G and automotive applications, so I'm in a position to know a fair bit about what's coming down the pipe,and the rail sector is WAY behind the curve...even compared to asia which have been rolling out LTE-R on their railway since 2017.

The thread title was about the railway adopting automotive technology. I do not disagree that the railways (and possibly highway traffic as you point out) will benefit from mobile telephony advances - which is separate from the motor trade last time I checked. I have to confess I regard the best place for a smartphone technology within the automotive sector as being safely locked away in the boot where it cannot distract people from operating a tonne of metal in the public realm.

Despite what Apple and Google will have you believe, technology - sorry, "tech" - is not a word that exclusively pertains to silicon valley stuff. But that's a whole rant for another day

 

[hooverboy]

The thread title was about the railway adopting automotive technology. I do not disagree that the railways (and possibly highway traffic as you point out) will benefit from mobile telephony advances - which is separate from the motor trade last time I checked. I have to confess I regard the best place for a smartphone technology within the automotive sector as being safely locked away in the boot where it cannot distract people from operating a tonne of metal in the public realm.

Despite what Apple and Google will have you believe, technology - sorry, "tech" - is not a word that exclusively pertains to silicon valley stuff. But that's a whole rant for another day

sure I get your point, hybrids, new power plants, stop start etc are the hardware side of it, but the point I'm trying to make is there is a massive benefit coming from much better management/more in depth knowledge of what is going on inside a train at any one time,where it is down to a matter of a metre or so instead of 1/4 mile sections etc.

Telephony and transport are no longer seperate entities.
The is a big industry wide move now for real time data on lots of different fields.
the conduit for this is the upgrade in present telephony ,GSM-R just does not have the bandwidth to do what's required.

this has huge implications for how signalling is done, both for controllers and for drivers.

likewise for freight, where wagons can be "tagged" individually with NFC, and scanned as they go over weigh bridges so hauliers will know what wagon ID has what cargo at what weight in a matter of seconds,and can be monitored real time
if you want to get technical rfid/nfc tags are also capable of providing supplier details/batch numbers/shelf lives of assigned goods...this sort of info is very valuable for some products(ie refrigerated/cold storage or medical)

it is possible to see rolling stock being "tagged" in such a way, you could call up service history/maintainance shedules etc very easily.

 

[alangla]

ONSTAR,GPS and such will certainly come to the railway.
The automotive sector is getting much,much bigger with realtime data from cars.period.

Did BR not have real time telemetry (DEMON I think it was called) fitted to either repowered HST power cars or 37/9s in the 1990s?

 

[t_star2001uk]

Did BR not have real time telemetry (DEMON I think it was called) fitted to either repowered HST power cars or 37/9s in the 1990s?

For those who are unfamiliar with the DEMON acronym

D - diesel
E - engine
MON - Monitor

I believe a couple of 165's had DEMON installed as well...

 

[squizzler]

It goes to show there's nothing new under the sun. The only innovation seems to be about consumerisation of technologies that were previously only available for professional users. Telemetry and performance monitoring that was used fifty years ago in the Apollo missions, twenty years ago on BR trains and airliners is now available to the delivery boy on a bicycle with smart phone, smart watch with heart monitor, Deliveroo and Strava apps, etc.

 

[edwin_m]

sure I get your point, hybrids, new power plants, stop start etc are the hardware side of it, but the point I'm trying to make is there is a massive benefit coming from much better management/more in depth knowledge of what is going on inside a train at any one time,where it is down to a matter of a metre or so instead of 1/4 mile sections etc.

Telephony and transport are no longer seperate entities.
The is a big industry wide move now for real time data on lots of different fields.
the conduit for this is the upgrade in present telephony ,GSM-R just does not have the bandwidth to do what's required.

this has huge implications for how signalling is done, both for controllers and for drivers.

likewise for freight, where wagons can be "tagged" individually with NFC, and scanned as they go over weigh bridges so hauliers will know what wagon ID has what cargo at what weight in a matter of seconds,and can be monitored real time
if you want to get technical rfid/nfc tags are also capable of providing supplier details/batch numbers/shelf lives of assigned goods...this sort of info is very valuable for some products(ie refrigerated/cold storage or medical)

it is possible to see rolling stock being "tagged" in such a way, you could call up service history/maintainance shedules etc very easily.

I first saw RF identification tags developed for MGR wagons in 1988. There was a system where track-mounted readers could identify the wagon - I think this was so the tare weight could be deducted from the weighbridge readings so the amount of coal was correctly charged for. I think all electric trains still carry RFID tags on the sides, so pantograph faults identified by the PANCHEX system can be matched to a vehicle number.

For those who are unfamiliar with the DEMON acronym

D - diesel
E - engine
MON - Monitor

I believe a couple of 165's had DEMON installed as well...

DEMON was first fitted to a Class 37. Condition monitoring was fitted to a 319 in about 1994. I don't recall HSTs or 165s but it was possibly fitted to these or other traction as well. It's now pretty much standard for new trains to have Train Management Systems that identify faults to the drivers, and these usually also have data links so the maintenance people can be notified.

All the above were first developed by BR Research, among many other ideas that were ahead of their time (and a smattering of plain stupid ones...). As a graduate trainee there I believe I was the first person to try GPS on a train, in 1988 or 1989 when we had to time the test runs for when enough of the few available satellites were above the horizon.

 

[cjmillsnun]

I think the railways got 'cruise control' first, with ATO.

ATO is more Autopilot.

Cruise is speed set.

Autonomous cruise could be covered by speed set combined with ATP

 

[w1bbl3]

The newer classes of stock all have some form of onboard condition logging for download at the depot and some depending on maintenance contract in place include a real-time datalink for faults, general condition, positioning and loading. Bombardier and Alstom have products available for fleet operators / maintainers, the manufacturer managed fleets will inevitably be fitted to allow condition based maintenance. 80x's and 395's report back to Hitachi in realtime again for condition based maintenance.

The aerospace industry has been doing this commercially for literally decades to maximise availability, knowing when your £1m+ aero engine is about to bang before it does really does save a lot of money even vs expensive imarsat data charges.

Other than this I could see an interesting future application of computer vision technology to recognise signal states and speed boards to provide an in cab view without fitting balises, ETCS was defined long before realtime computer vision became possible on a practical level.