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Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

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Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#131

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

ahartmetz wrote: post #116
SiempreViernes wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can probably buy some of the older rolling stock from DB thought.

It does happen occasionally, but DB tends to run, maintain and sometimes upgrade its successful (~reliable and widely introduced) rolling stock until it falls apart or is grossly outdated (40+ years old). Rail passenger numbers are increasing, so there is no need to sell stuff to downsize. The Flixtrain company uses 40+ years old IC (intercity) cars - they have no air conditioning and it's really loud inside with ope…

Hrrm. Funny. I thought that those were so called "Eurofima", which I remember as fucking cold in summer, because then their AC were set at full blast, which was annoying at the times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofima_coach

Also no real opening of windows anymore, because early onset of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druckertüchtigte_Schienenfahrz... <- meaning pressure protection against passing trains at high speeds, entering tunnels, and such.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#133

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

PLenz wrote: post #86
sc11 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signalling still works, so you can let the trains continue to a safe place like a station and then not let them leave until the radio issue is resolved

That depends, cab signaling for example needs radio to work

Not necessarily, at least for some time:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linienförmige_Zugbeeinflussung

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#134

Post by jtwaleson »

hiq wrote: post #129
jtwaleson wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at a conference in Frankfurt, traveling back to Amsterdam with my cofounder and got stuck in Oberhausen. We have an early flight tomorrow and there's no trains in NL due to a strike tomorrow morning, so we decided to take an uber home. At first the delay was 30 minutes. Then 2 hours. After 1h30 with zero updates we decided to bail. Just checked and nothing is moving yet, so we made the right call.

So a 2h ride? Was it easy to find a driver?

Yes and yes. Uber for 260 eur arrived within 5 minutes after booking.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#135

Post by hylaride »

lmm wrote: post #115
eqvinox wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, in case people are less familiar with German politics: DB is in a misbegotten state of privatization, started in the 90ies. The government spun it out into a private company but still owns 100% of it. They were trying to pump it up so they could sell it for good money. They did that by skimping on everything including maintenance, to try and make the numbers look good. Except they never got to whatever m…

> Not sure if this is better or worse than the UK's Network Rail story, but at the end of the day the only thing that will solve this is if they re-nationalize the tracks & infrastructure. What kind of an idiot thought including that in the privatization is a good idea is beyond me. It's not like you can build a 2nd railway network in order to get free market & competition. (For comparison, imagine privatizing the en…

Governments can be just as bad at infrastructure investments.

That being said, I get the sense it's a German cultural problem. I used to travel to Germany quite frequently and was always surprised at the poor quality of much of the infrastructure, including private. The cell phone networks and internet speeds were all awful. As recently as 6 years ago my phone dropped to edge as soon as I left the city and within the major cities I had terrible performance. I'm not kidding when I say that I often had near dialup speeds, despite having full LTE bars. Maybe this has improved since.

As for rail, for Europe, the rail lines should probably be run as a cooperative with the rail companies paying dues.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#136

Post by wrs »

NamTaf wrote: post #69
wrs wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This special mobile communication standard is designed to make communication fail-safe Mmm, nope.

It did fail safe though? Interference led to the network stopping, not trains just racing towards each other due to bogus line authorities. That is, by definition, fail-safe

That seems like a fail-safe interpretation of communication: if there is no communication, stop the train. But that's a special case. GSM-R is much more than line authorities.

>GSM-R is a secure platform for voice and data communication between railway operational staff, including drivers, dispatchers, shunting team members, train engineers, and station controllers.

Designing the communication network itself in such a way that the entire thing can apparently fail, doesn't sound "fail-safe" to me. (Though its failure may trigger fail-safes in higher-level systems.) In particular, some functions may require communications to be "safe"; e.g., emergency personnel not being able to communicate is not "safe".

But perhaps this is being overstated in the vague reporting, and it's only a regional failure.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#137

Post by dcel »

phatfish wrote: post #122
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leide nicht. Trains in Germany and the UK for main-line running both use 1435mm gauge. UK trains are not a custom size.

Everything about UK rail is custom (apart from the gauge). Apparently it's one of the (many) reasons HS2 is such a mess. They were trying to run trains faster than typical continental high speed lines, which meant custom design work that needs loads of additional testing and certification. Rather than just use the Spanish or French high speed designs.

Max line speed of HS2 is 360km/h, with provision for 400 in some sections in future. This is entirely in line with many other modern HS lines. China’s been running regular 360km/h services for years.

This is a project with a 200+ year shelf life. Designing to 300 or less would have been short sighted, and many of the changes to accommodate such high speeds actually reduce costs in the long term (slab track, headroom to catch up delayed services, ability for one trainset to operate more services per day etc).

The cost overruns of HS2 are primarily from plain old poor project management, complex planning law and constant political meddling, not engineering decisions.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#138

Post by arjie »

fnordian_slip wrote: post #26
mmoll wrote: post #4

If this weren’t Deutsche Bahn, I’d say it’s a cyber attack. Given that this is Deutsche Bahn, though, it may just as well be a maintenance issue.

That's what happens when you ignore critical infrastructure for three decades. Of course, if the government were to correct the mistakes of the past, it would get worse for another decade. The necessary repairs would cause a lot more delays, and voters would then say "Were giving them so much extra money, and it gets worse? Unacceptable!". So I fear we'll continue to have these problems forever.

It's interesting how software systems and these large systems always have the same problem. Software failures are described by the engineers as being caused by "not enough maintenance and now the code needs to be refactored" and these real world systems are always caused by "not enough funding for preventative maintenance". It's a curious case that these issues are rarely caused by actions in the present but primarily by actions (and often other actors) in the past.

Presumably, we too shall be the villains to the people of 2050 as they shall, in turn, be the morons who built this stupid fucking system in this dumbass way instead of just designing it correctly and keeping it up to date over the years to the people of 2080. One thing I must consider doing is calling any fellow coworker an idiot pre-emptively since that way it's like I'm living 25 years in the future.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#139

Post by iknowstuff »

eqvinox wrote: post #78
mmoll wrote: post #4

If this weren’t Deutsche Bahn, I’d say it’s a cyber attack. Given that this is Deutsche Bahn, though, it may just as well be a maintenance issue.

For context, in case people are less familiar with German politics: DB is in a misbegotten state of privatization, started in the 90ies. The government spun it out into a private company but still owns 100% of it. They were trying to pump it up so they could sell it for good money. They did that by skimping on everything including maintenance, to try and make the numbers look good. Except they never got to whatever m…

What is the incentive for politicians to sell a publicly owned company for a lot of money? How would they personally benefit from a high price? I can only think of incentives to sell it for as little as possible to a most favored investor/buddy.

Re: Trains halted across Germany because of communication system problem

#140

Post by tormeh »

segmondy wrote: post #67
ripbozo wrote: post #23

Word on the german bahn reddit seems to be that a buggy software update is the cause. Remains to be seen if this is the real cause

AI vibes all the place!

Everything I've ever heard about railway and train software suggests AI cannot possibly make things any worse than they already are. Conservatism causes no changes to be possible, which means many changes have to be made via workarounds and virtualization wrappers which cause a giant mess over time which create breakage which creates a conservative culture/laws.
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