What is the Problem: According to the Association of American Railroads, there are over 233,000 miles of train tracks in the United States. Freight rail lines make up approximately half of all these train tracks i.e. 137,465 freight railroad miles. “Early detection is critical to the prevention of track-caused train accidents,” said FRA Administrator Joseph H. Boardman. “Increased track safety means improved public safety.” Track-caused accidents are the second leading cause of all train accidents. The challenge to these rail companies are endless in accomplishing their number one mission of safety. Today, it takes superhuman effort to inspect thousands of miles of tracks. • All tracks must be inspected two times per week; • Labor intensive operation …show more content…
Overview of the Technology A technology has emerged that we believe will be a game-changer in the railroad industry for asset inspection – Unmanned Arial Vehicles or Drones. These long-range drones can perform aerial data collection over hundreds of miles. This technology has the potential to deliver the following primary benefits: - Increase safety by allowing drones to quickly identify compromised railways and minimize derailments; - Increase in cost efficiencies by reduction in labor hours to inspect tracks; - This means asset owners, managers and operators can make better informed business decisions, enabling dynamic use of resources more safely, quickly and efficiently. (According to article in Rail News on 3rd March 2017) Features of Technology: - Capturing of live data feed over 60 miles; - Ability to capture all types of images without the use of heavy machinery– still, 3D, infrared. - A drone flying at 500 feet may be able to spot a quarter-inch inspection in a rail line even at night and in poor weather conditions. (According to an article in the Association of American Railroads in the 2016 State the Industry Reports)
There were only 23 total miles of railroad tracks when they started, but by the 1830’s there were up to 35 Thousand then up to 245,000 miles by the end of the Civil War in 1916. This shows how important and big railroads were at this time. Being one of the biggest part of the time, railroads soon became some of the biggest parts of strikes ever.
The most important safety improvements come from route upgrades, where significant lengths of road are improved to appropriate standards. However, the Authority has carried out thousands of small safety interventions over the years, such as junction realignments or measures to slow traffic in urban areas. We continue our programme of road safety inspections as required by the EU Infrastructure Safety Directive, and these inspections are identifying many additional needs, especially on the Secondary Road legacy network.
“At a news conference in Washington, the president and chairman of Amtrak, Thomas M. Downs, said the derailment had been caused by the removal of bolts that hold a 36-inch-long connecting bar to two pieces of 39-foot-long rail” (Mydans, 1995, para. 18). “Amtrak executives said that the derailment was an act of sabotage that could have taken one person only 10 minutes to carry out” (Mydans, 1995, para. 16). The most interest part is that whom ever moved the railroad tracks left no traces of their work other than the letters and had to know the wiring system of the railroad track. The railroad track has sensors in it so that if it moves the conductor knows to stop the train or find out what is wrong up ahead. The next part of this that makes no sense is that Amtrak says that one man can move 39 feet rail 2 degrees which weigh roughly 130 pounds per yard (Wabtec, 2017). There is absolutely no way that one man jumped the track wiring and then moved 1690 pounds of track in ten minutes. Moreover, the area that the train was derailed was in the middle of nowhere. The closest road was 38 miles away. Two decades later the FBI has not been able to figure out who committed this crime and has offered a $300,000 reward for information to capture the terrorist. This paper will discuss two possible suspects that could have derailed the train Sons of the Gestapo and a government conspiracy
Rail in Chicago is essential to Railroads throughout the country of North America. Chicago is also the known for it’s center in the railways throughout America. In comparison to any other city in the country, Chicago offers more railroad tracks to the surrounding states. “Chicago today remains the busiest rail hub in the United States. Each day, nearly 1,300 trains pass through the region (500 freight and 760 passenger). Chicago handles one-fourth of the nation's freight rail traffic, each day handling 37,500 railcars” (About CREATE). Being the center for American freight Chicago also is known for it railyards. The railyards are gateways to the other rail tracks. It is home t...
Cross country and track to an outsider, they can only be seen as running. Well, to a student of the sport they are both so much more. Runners are gathered to both, but there are plenty of variations between the two. Although I love both of these sports, if I had to side with one, I would choose track. These can commonly be seen in training, races, and people.
“Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.” (Robert Baden-Powell). Track season was getting ready to start and I was excited for it because I love to run. This was my first year in high school so this would be my first time to get to be on a high school track team. I went to the first practice, which was conditioning day, and ran as hard as I could. No matter how hard I was hurting or sweating I keep running and finished in the top group every time. Practice comes to an end and coach calls up runners individually and tells us what we are going to be running. He calls me up and I am just knowing that he is going to say the 200 or 400. To my disappointment he tells me I am going to be running the 300 hurdles. I hated the hurdles so to myself I told myself I wasn’t going to practice hard because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t practice hard so I got put on JV. I won all the JV races in the 300 hurdles so that just pushed me to not want to practice even more because I could win without practice. District track meet rolls around and Trey one of the varsity runners gets hurt so coach moves me to varsity. In my mind I am thinking this is going to be easy I haven’t lost a race on JV so I won’t lose on varsity. The intercom comes on and calls out for my race. It was time to go win.
Question at Issue - How are the engineer and railroad negligent? What could have been done by the engineer and railroad company to prevent the accident? Would more training have invoked a different preventative response from the engineer? Are the current railroad safety regulations sufficient? Are there any warnings on the road before it curves towards the track? If you didn’t know the area would you clearly be able to spot a train? What if a car was stalled on the tracks? Would a train
The average amount of NFL players who get injured are 3.7 per week, and all this makes player safety in question. Why, why are players getting injured. This highly controversial topic has people questioning the player safety and how is it helping the players of today's gone. When it comes to player safety we wonder if it has helped or worsened the league, many people can't make that judgement because they can't tell if what the NFL has done towards player safety. The NFL needs to do more to protect it's from any injury because their career could be in jeopardy.
I completed my Step-Up Connection at the Bedford Care Center in Hattiesburg, and I participated there for a total of five hours. The observations I made there consisted of both physical and speech therapy, memory games, and discussions about paperwork, pay, and hours. This experience helped me to better understand the medical side of speech therapy and the differences between the medical field and school system. The Step-Up Connection is important because it forces the student to see a completely different side of the career path, and it helps broaden the knowledge of the student because they get to talk to another person in the field besides their mentor. I think the Step-Up Connection could become a little side project for a different career; for example,
Some of the most common misconceptions about drones arise due to the lack of knowledge about what drones are. A drone is a remote controlled, pilotless aircraft that can be used to survey an area, conduct stealth missions, and deliver supplies into difficult to reach areas (Drone). Unmanned aircrafts are also, contrary to popular belief, not solely machines that kill without even a thought to who is being fired upon. They have proved to be effective surveillance units in areas that may be dangerous for manned aircrafts to fly, along with the potential to be reliable delivery units (Drones). With the new delivery capabilities, the time it takes for packages to be delivered across long distances could be cut down to a matter of hours...
Another name for drones are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS). These are “aircraft either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission” (Cole 4). Even though there are many unique types of drones, but they usually fall under two main categories: ones that are armed and equipped with missiles and bombs and others that are used for surveillance. In the past couple of years the use of drones has increased dramatically. The reason being because “unlike manned aircraft they can stay aloft for many hours and are flown remotely so there is no danger to the flight crew” (Cole 13). There are drones that can actually fly over more than fifty hours. In countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, the Predator and U.S Reaper are physically there. Cause of the power of technology th...
Drones are used by universities, scientists, governments, ecologists, environmentalist, bureaus of land management and many other organizations to study wetlands and waterways, endangered species, herd health, erosion, track evasive species, identify blight growth, assist smoke-jumpers in forest fires, and take water and soil samples from inaccessible areas. Environmentalists have definitely maximized opportunities to use drone technology in their field of work.
Public safety covers a wide variety of people and organizations, but carries one common theme and that is, the public’s safety. This course has broadened my knowledge on the many roles that make the public safety sector go around and the role the public plays in it as well. My thoughts before the course were close minded and to the point. I quickly realized that policing is not as cut and dry as I once portrayed it to be. Society is always changing and adapting, and it is the job of the those in public safety to adapt and change with it. The mindset that I grew up with, in rural Saskatchewan, was the police are good people and you will only need to deal with them if you break the law or see someone break the law. My answers in the module 1 survey reflected my upbringing. My first thought for
People ride bicycles for various reasons. Some people ride bicycles for sport, fitness purposes, as a mode of transportation, fun activity, and some people ride bikes to simply relax and clear their mind after a long day. Regardless of the reason you ride, it is important to know the factors that contribute to bicycle and helmet safety. A study in 2014 shows that 103.7 million people rode a bike that year and 34 percent of Americans age three or older rode a bike at least once in that year (“Study: 103.7 Million Americans Ride Bikes”). The importance of bicycle safety cannot be underestimated. According to the 2008 Alabama Traffic Crash Facts, there were 182 bicycle crash injuries and four fatalities. In 2008, children 14 years old and under
It’s true what everyone talks about safety – you are the key to your safety, when you do it safely you do it the right way and the best gift you can give to your family is to always stay safe. We have been taught by our parents and teachers to be cautious while doing a number of things. That’s very essential in our daily lives, because one needs to be extra cautious to prevent unavoidable accidents. However, mishaps do happen everywhere in the safest of places, no matter how careful we are in our actions. It is highly unpredictable, what’s going to happen the very next instant. There are numerous incidences we come across like simple trips, falls, cuts due to sharp objects, burns or sudden worsening of a person’s health condition, causing