Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
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Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#2To save you the click through:
> This may be a great obscure fact, but it is not an example of European regulations gone mad. To keep track of where all the trains are on the Swiss rail network, there are detectors positioned around the rails. They are simple detectors that are activated when a wheel goes over a rail, and they count how many wheels there are to provide some basic information about the train which has just passed. Unfortunately, they keep track of the number of wheels using an 8-digit binary number, and when that number reaches 11111111 it rolls over to 00000000. Any trains which bring the count back to exactly zero move around undetected, as phantom trains.
From: "Humble Pi: A comedy of maths errors" by Matt Parker (https://mathsgear.co.uk/collections/books/products/humble-pi...), page 191.
edit: Added quote attribution.
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#3To save you the click through: > This may be a great obscure fact, but it is not an example of European regulations gone mad. To keep track of where all the trains are on the Swiss rail network, there are detectors positioned around the rails. They are simple detectors that are activated when a wheel goes over a rail, and they count how many wheels there are to provide some basic information about the train which has…
So if you want to move around Switzerland undetected, commission a train with 256 axles and bam! You're invisible :P
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#4This seems like a perfectly reasonably limitation in the context of european railroading (shorter trains, more frequency), when you consider that many European freight cars are 2 axle
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#5To save you the click through: > This may be a great obscure fact, but it is not an example of European regulations gone mad. To keep track of where all the trains are on the Swiss rail network, there are detectors positioned around the rails. They are simple detectors that are activated when a wheel goes over a rail, and they count how many wheels there are to provide some basic information about the train which has…
So if you want to move around Switzerland undetected, commission a train with 256 axles and bam! You're invisible :P
I want to see the Snowpiercer / Speed reboot based on this concept.
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#6To save you the click through: > This may be a great obscure fact, but it is not an example of European regulations gone mad. To keep track of where all the trains are on the Swiss rail network, there are detectors positioned around the rails. They are simple detectors that are activated when a wheel goes over a rail, and they count how many wheels there are to provide some basic information about the train which has…
So if you want to move around Switzerland undetected, commission a train with 256 axles and bam! You're invisible :P
Haha one can imagine this will be rapidly bred out of the species since it's such a significant maladaptation. Like dressing in Vantablack and running on a rural expressway.
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#7Is 256 the upper limit, or is it just a magic number to be avoided? Is a train with 258 axles OK?
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#8Shouldn't they also not have anywhere around 256, because if a 258 axle train has a couple of missed detections it'll still look like 0?
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#9To save you the click through: > This may be a great obscure fact, but it is not an example of European regulations gone mad. To keep track of where all the trains are on the Swiss rail network, there are detectors positioned around the rails. They are simple detectors that are activated when a wheel goes over a rail, and they count how many wheels there are to provide some basic information about the train which has…
"There have been plenty of times where a hardware issue has been covered by a software fix, but only in Switzerland have I seen a bug fixed with a bureaucracy patch."
That's an amusing perspective, but it actually looks like it might be a hardware issue that cannot be patched purely with software, as it arises in the trackside devices that detect passing trains.
I hope the method for verifying compliance with this rule does not suffer from the same problem (it may be moot: a train of 64 20 meter wagons would approach 1.5 km in length; not unusual in some places, but perhaps not Europe.)
It is a bit of a stretch, but Boeing's MCAS problem might be also classed as a software issue 'fixed' with a bureaucracy patch, as the failure to make use of the available hardware to make the MCAS software fault-tolerant was 'patched' with an FAR directing pilots to the existing trim runaway procedure.
Re: Trains in Switzerland are not allowed to have 256 axles
#10Is 256 the upper limit, or is it just a magic number to be avoided? Is a train with 258 axles OK?
If you click through, 256 overflows to zero, which means the system thinks there's no train. 258 is fine.
> "Any trains which bring the count back to exactly zero move around undetected, as phantom trains."