From: stephen@sprunk.org   
      
   On 20-Apr-15 12:55, Adam H. Kerman wrote:   
   > Stephen Sprunk  wrote:   
   >> On 17-Apr-15 21:02, Michael Finfer wrote:   
   >>> One of the issues here is that SEPTA chose a PTC system that is   
   >>> incompatible with the one CSX will be using.  I am still shaking   
   >>> my head over that.  Interoperability was supposed to be one of   
   >>> the key features of operating a national system.   
   >>   
   >> There is no "national" PTC system; every railroad is developing   
   >> their own, and while at least some of them are supposed to be   
   >> interoperable, in practice that never turns out as well as   
   >> promised.  We also won't get the benefits of economy of scale that   
   >> way.   
   >   
   > What the hell does economy of scale have to do with anything?   
      
   Scale directly influences the marginal cost to produce equipment.   
      
   Reusing existing technologies, e.g. GSM-R, also reduces the time to   
   design and test said equipment, which indirectly influences cost and   
   leverages that other technology's economy of scale.   
      
   Developing a dozen different systems in parallel, none leveraging _any_   
   existing technologies, means a dozen times the development costs and   
   higher marginal cost of production.  That's just plain stupid.   
      
   > There are huge, expensive problems to overcome, like lack of radio   
   > spectrum capacity particularly in Chicago   
      
   Gosh, it's too bad there's not _already_ a widely-used, off-the-shelf   
   system developed to solve exactly that problem.  Oh wait, there is!   
      
   > and that FCC is way way behind on issuing licenses for all the new   
   > transmitters and relay stations,   
      
   Not surprising.  And that wouldn't be a problem if they had gone with   
   GSM-R, which (thanks to clever design) is capable of falling back to   
   using existing GSM networks if the GSM-R network isn't available.   
      
   > and the complete idiocy of the design that the entire railroad   
   > infrastructure plan must be downloaded into the locomotive   
   > each and every time the fucking consist changes direction because,   
   > you know, somebody installed a brand-new turnout in the last hour.   
      
   I've previously pointed out the idiocy of that decision, as well as   
   their decision to use GPS in general.   
      
   > It's one massively stupid fuckup. Economy of scale is mostly   
   > irrelevant.   
      
   It's one (of many) components of the fuckup, and it certainly won't be   
   irrelevant once they actually get to the deployment phase--and drag   
   their feet because it's too damn expensive to actually use.   
      
   ETCS isn't perfect, but the Europeans have been working out the issues,   
   and it would have cost a _lot_ less (both now and in the future) to join   
   in that effort than it'll cost us to repeat their mistakes--several   
   times--plus invent many new mistakes they avoided.   
      
   It's just like the stupidity of our CDMA/TDMA/iDEN war while the world   
   standardized on GSM.  Despite its flaws, GSM is far superior to all of   
   the US-developed systems _and_ costs less due to economy of scale, which   
   is why all US carriers are finally moving that way.   
      
   S   
      
   --   
   Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein   
   CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the   
   K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking   
      
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