Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

abc7news.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 252 posts

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#171

Post by arrosenberg »

skrbjc wrote: post #150
arrosenberg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess the people who work on public transit aren't interested in having the best public transit system available. They're only interested in keeping it running for as long as possible with zero changes or responsibility. Let me guess, you also think public servants are lazy, overpaid and unskilled? Comments like this belie how many people form opinions of public agencies without having any real experience with go…

>Let me guess, you also think public servants are lazy, overpaid and unskilled? Comments like this belie how many people form opinions of public agencies without having any real experience with government. I've worked in the public sector for several years, and there are definitely a decently-sized group of people in many different positions that are riding out their time until retirement trying to fly under the rada…

Eh, plenty of private companies have that issue too. It is a bit harder to fix in the public sector though, I will give you that.

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#172

Post by arrosenberg »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #154
arrosenberg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the guiding principle for the folks at the top is “so, how can I make money for myself out of this before I fail upwards?”. Who are "the folks at the top"? Transit agency executives in California make less than software engineers (though if you put in your time, you get a nice pension to make up for it) - how are these people getting rich? If you mean the politicians, sure, I've already said they're half the pr…

Nah, Jeffrey Tumlin (current SFMTA head) makes about $500k total comp.

So the CEO of one of the 4-5 largest transit agencies in the country makes about what a staff level FAANG engineer makes...

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#173

Post by asdefghyk »

jandrese wrote: post #108
iancmceachern wrote: post #63

I emailed them. I live I'm SF. This is the sake, solved, problem we have in the machine tool world (milling machines, lathes, etc). Similar to old keyboards, you can just buy and use a floppy emulator. They emailed me back, they said that the floppy thing makes a good headline but is really just the tip of the iceberg. It's really the whole system that's like this at every layer, it needs replacing they say.

This was my thought. Floppy emulators are a dime a dozen thanks to the retrocomputing community. Emulators for the custom boards full of discrete logic, opaque ROM chips, PLAs, and so on from long dead companies are going to be a much bigger challenge. If they had good schematics for all of the parts it might be possible to keep the the system running for a long time with a couple of smart EEs who are comfortable wit…

RE "....Still an expensive process, ....." Actually probably NOT , if all the $$ saved over the last 25 years , and also considering the many millions to get a completely new replacement system....

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#174

Post by asdefghyk »

iancmceachern wrote: post #63

I emailed them. I live I'm SF. This is the sake, solved, problem we have in the machine tool world (milling machines, lathes, etc). Similar to old keyboards, you can just buy and use a floppy emulator. They emailed me back, they said that the floppy thing makes a good headline but is really just the tip of the iceberg. It's really the whole system that's like this at every layer, it needs replacing they say.

The PC and the floppy disk should be running as a virtual machine. ( The Vm software and host OS and the hardware would all be current supported versions of course )

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#175

Post by kiwijamo »

rangestransform wrote: post #51
nerdjon wrote: post #10

Well... I feel slightly better about Boston constantly pushing back being able to use our phones as tickets after seeing the timeline for the transition and how just that they are still doing this. What is it about public transit in the US that it is so... bad? Inadequate funding seems to be the easy one, but the MBTA (Boston) doesn't even handle the funds it has well. Yeah it needs more funding but there is also jus…

other countries don't treat public transit as a jobs program other cities (in the east, with the best public transit) don't let unions grab the entire city by the balls government employees in other cities aren't as hellbent on extracting their pound of flesh from the taxpayer

I struggle to understand how unions/government are often seen as the problem. Some of the best public transit I've experienced have been in places with strong unions and more government-owned/managed public transit e.g. much of Europe. Some of the worst in places where unions are weak and "public" transit is largely out-sourced to private entities operating on behalf of public transit agencies e.g. the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

I live in New Zealand public transit in NZ used to be incredibly bad during the heights of private operation in the 1990's but has improved heaps over the last 10-20 years as local/central govt have progressively taken back control over more aspects of public transit. However public agencies are still not allowed to directly operate bus or train services which still sees private companies failing to provide good service with no consquences and public agencies unable to take over to provide the service improvements that are needed. It is interesting to compare New Zealand in the 1950's had one of the highest levels of public transit usage per capita under public ownership of buses and railways. This dropped down to embrassingly low levels after out-sourcing to private entities to a low in the 1990's.

It has only been under government leadership that we have seen a revival to the current levels (e.g. doubling to 100+ million trips per annum in our biggest city from well below 50 million in the mid-1990's) due to local government coordinating public transit systems (and contracting private entities to operate to the timetables set by public authorities) that meets the needs of the users and not just private entities making a profit. Unions have been vocal too for improving systems not only for transit employees but also recognising that what's best for transit users also benefit transit employees.

YMMV and possibly depends on the political environment in each country.

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#177

Post by inferiorhuman »

fdr wrote: post #169
thsksbd wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But twenty years for a train seems very low. My daily driver is 12 years old, I thrash it every morning and never gives me problems. I live in the snowbelt. By comparison a train is vastly over-engineered and has an electric drive train. Sure stuff will need replacing but a train should last 40 years at least

I wouldn't call myself as particular on train maintenance...but consider that these trains are run more or less continuously. You thrash your car in seasonally tough conditions every morning, but these drive all day and most of the night. So, I'm not sure if the comparison is apt on these grounds. A cursory search suggests that quite a few manufacturers design for light rail car lifetimes of 25-30 years, not forty. T…

Transit vehicles purchased with federal funds are required to meet a minimum service life (see below). For the Muni Metro you're looking at a minimum expected life of 31 years.

https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2021-11/...

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#178

Post by coryrc »

simfree wrote: post #93
nomel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when the repercussions for poor performance/failure is more money. Privatization, with some regulations, and reduction of monopolies, seems like a good idea. But, the system will never choose to harm itself.

The current engineering ecosystem is largely private, and it's poorly functioning, costing us way more money than just hiring engineers as public employees rather than paying a contracting firm to do initial and final design on each rail system segment. Just go look at the RFPs and responses each municipality has four expansion of their current system. It is all outsource to private industry, at great cost compared t…

Design-Build contracts. As stupid as the downtown Seattle highway 99 tunnel was [0], apparently we got away without paying the overages.

0: two lanes of traffic each way and an 8-lane stroad for >$2B instead of fixing the 3-lanes-each-way viaduct for $1B

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#179

Post by jcgrillo »

JoyousAbandon wrote: post #124
inferiorhuman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I have to do this research instead of the "journalist"? Ratchet the snark back. The journalist was referring to the train control system not home computers in someone's basement. And, yes, twenty five years ago SelTrac was cutting edge. Moving block systems were basically unheard of back then.

The only snark here is yours. What are you talking about with "computers in someone's basement?" He pointed out glaring factual errors in the story, which should not have made it through any kind of editorial review. For example: 25 years ago pretty much every computer had a hard drive. And the disk depicted in the article is obviously a 3.5", not a "five-inch floppy."

> glaring factual errors

You keep parroting this maxim without showing any convincing evidence of an error... what's the point of that? You obviously have some affinity for factual correctness, yet your style of argument and evidentiary rigor appears to boil down to "repeating the maxim many times in many different places makes it more factually true" which is obviously nonsense. Maybe some food for thought?

Re: SFMTA's train system running on floppy disks; city fears 'catastrophic failure'

#180

Post by coryrc »

nomel wrote: post #113
simfree wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current engineering ecosystem is largely private, and it's poorly functioning, costing us way more money than just hiring engineers as public employees rather than paying a contracting firm to do initial and final design on each rail system segment. Just go look at the RFPs and responses each municipality has four expansion of their current system. It is all outsource to private industry, at great cost compared t…

I would claim that the problem is that they're doing it for government, which is what makes the chain of accountability lead to nowhere.

The problem is the government doesn't know what to ask for.
Post reply on HN