San Francisco Muni's Rail System Will Spend $212 Million To Upgrade From Floppy Disks (govtech.com) 34
San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency approved a $212 million contract with Hitachi Rail to modernize the Muni Metro system's outdated train control system, which currently uses floppy disks and wire loops. Government Technology reports: The software that runs the system is stored on floppy disks that are loaded each morning and an outdated type of communication using wire loops that are easily disrupted. It was expected to last for 20 to 25 years, according to Muni officials. It moves data more slowly than a wireless modem, they said. By late 2027 and into 2028, a new communications-based system, which employs Wi-Fi and cell signals to precisely track the locations of trains, will be installed by Hitachi, which will provide support services for 20 years under the agreement.
While the current train control system operates only on the Market Street subway and Central Subway, the new system will control Metro light rail trains on the system's surface lines as well. The Hitachi system is said to be five generations ahead of the current system, said Muni Director of Transit Julie Kirschbaum, who described it as the best train control system on the market.
While the current train control system operates only on the Market Street subway and Central Subway, the new system will control Metro light rail trains on the system's surface lines as well. The Hitachi system is said to be five generations ahead of the current system, said Muni Director of Transit Julie Kirschbaum, who described it as the best train control system on the market.
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oh, man, I had such high hopes for that format. Bought 2 drives and at least 5 discs way back.
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Me too, me too! :)
Re: I'm a consulant and important MCSE (Score:1)
I remember the original installation (Score:2)
After a few times needing to walk through a portion of the tunnels as the system failed, they had finally upgraded the system to modern communications that would allow for driverless trains... just a "safety driver." Interesting that the solution was neither modular or easily upgraded as the system grew over the next few decades.
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Heh. from the TFA it looks like $212M is just the communications part or some subset of the system:
The contract is part of a $700 million project to transform the Muni Metro's control system.
Also i don't see how they're going to use ATC outside even now when something like half the system is at street level and interacts with pedestrians, traffic lights and car traffic.
looks like CBTC vs GSM-R (lte edition) (Score:2)
depends if they have a coms network / radio spectrum allocation
other countries railways have a portion of the spectrum they can run their own LTE network on not sure if Muni can do that...
if they could it would be cheaper to use GSM technology with voice for the drivers etc etc
instead they will go with the old CBTC and live on things like Wifi and hope interference does not kill them...
good luck
Remember! (Score:3)
Don't copy that floppy!
Wire loop? (Score:2)
Do they mean 4-20 ma systems? Modbus? Something really old?
Isn't there something like this for their system?
https://www.bigmessowires.com/... [bigmessowires.com]
Granted it probably is time to rip it all out and start over. I helped do something similar at a chemical plant, but we had a 10 day maintenance shutdown to do it.
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Re: Wire loop? (Score:1)
Start over - can't (Score:2)
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" I've worked on a number of these legacy systems and they have had crap slowly added to them over time and all the documentation is now lost, out of date or for a completely different system."
I've been there, LOL. DEC Alpha running sequences. It was still going in 2013 when they shut the whole unit down. Then there was 1985's finest Provox system feeding it data.
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Huh? (Score:2)
This will fail (Score:2)
My guess is that this will fail because there is too much money involved. Just an itutition after having seen too much IT disasters.
Let's revisit this prediction in 10 years.
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The reason floppies are still used in nuclear weapons silos and trains and Boeing planes is their simplicity and robustness to degradation. Making it more complex does not itself make it better just be cause its newer.
I don't think even 10 years is needed, I expect it will be hacked or have a technical meltdown within 5. We shall see.
They installed C64 REU's and CMD HDD's (Score:2)
Interim solution (Score:2)
Hit the retrocomputing community: I bet they could easily keep the current system as-is for the time being but upgrade the floppy drives to flash memory or even make them look like physical drives to the original system but pull files on the network on the other, with some el-cheapo Raspberry Pi board or something. I'm always amazed to see what these guys come up with to keep truly ancient computers going and relevant today.
Focusing on floppy disks is missing the point (Score:1)
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$212 million (Score:2)
Are they that fucking stupid? How can it cost $212 million? Do these morons not have anyone that knows how computers work?
Re: $212 million (Score:2)
For real. Slap some air tags on the carriage and call it a day. Your welcome.
Being facetious of course but one could think of dozens of ways to track trains and use that info to route, re-route, prevent accidents, etc for a mere fraction of 212 million.
And yeah, going back to the original vendor after 25 yearsâ¦that Hitachi sales guy has retired on this bokndoggle
Re: $212 million (Score:1)
Re: $212 million (Score:2)
I read the Wikipedia and another article written by Muni. Standing by the assertion that $212 million is way too much for train tracking and routing over the entire system.
Hire 6 retirees from JPL and give them a million each. Done in 12 months and rock solid for a decade to come.
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no. no one knows how computers work. its a collective effort of thousand of people around the world keeping a complex ever evolving stack of jenga tower bricks from toppling over.
you could probably kill 10 people and setback the entire industry decades.
Re: $212 million (Score:1)
Wifi? (Score:2)
Wire loops? (Score:2)