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Life on the Rails

Started by Savonarola, June 17, 2015, 12:52:20 PM

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Savonarola

#555
September 12, 2025, 01:59:23 PM
In order to plan the location of radio towers I use Radiofrequency Propagation software.  This takes into account things like antenna type, broadcast power, frequency, the environment that the receiver is at and a number of other factors.  With the advances in GIS, LIDAR and other mapping tools these tools have become more sophisticated over the years.  Yesterday I attended a demonstration of a company who had developed a propagation analyses software for the lunar surface.  So we're ready for cellphones on the moon.  :thumbsup:

 ;)

Presumably this is intended to be used for radio communication for the next generation of lunar landing and subsequent research stations.  They really did an impressive job with this, including factoring the electro-magnetic properties of regolith, lack of atmosphere, lunar dust and craters.  It's just a niche application of a broader tool, but that they actually developed that was kind of neat.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

mongers

#556
September 12, 2025, 02:01:43 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on September 12, 2025, 01:59:23 PMIn order to plan the location of radio towers I use Radiofrequency Propagation software.  This takes into account things like antenna type, broadcast power, frequency, the environment that the receiver is at and a number of other factors.  With the advances in GIS, LIDAR and other mapping tools these tools have become more sophisticated over the years.  Yesterday I attended a demonstration of a company who had developed a propagation analyses software for the lunar surface.  So we're ready for cellphones on the moon.  :thumbsup:

 ;)

Presumably this is intended to be used for radio communication for the next generation of lunar landing and subsequent research stations.  They really did an impressive job with this, including factoring the electro-magnetic properties of regolith, lack of atmosphere, lunar dust and craters.  It's just a niche application of a broader tool, but that they actually developed that was kind of neat.

Railroads on the Moon.  :cool:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Baron von Schtinkenbutt

#557
September 12, 2025, 02:10:16 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on July 20, 2025, 10:49:45 AMGrand Central Station

TERMINAL!  :grr:  :bash:  :banned:

Savonarola

#558
September 12, 2025, 02:14:41 PM
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Baron von Schtinkenbutt

#559
September 12, 2025, 02:49:26 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on September 12, 2025, 02:14:41 PMSorry  :Embarrass:

It's one of my wife's bugbears. :P :hug:

Savonarola

#560
September 12, 2025, 02:58:04 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on May 02, 2025, 02:51:51 PMBusiness has been down at Knorr-Bremse; rail signaling industry has been down since the time of Covid.  For us the problem was compounded when we were spun off from Alstom.  Alstom's processes are designed for billion dollar rolling stock, or $500 million CBTC systems.  Conventional signaling projects are much smaller and, unless they supported one of Alstom's large systems, they wouldn't be bid on; so there has been little incoming business.

In February of this year we had offers of early retirement for employees over 65.  Bill, from my many stories, took the offer.  That hit me a little harder than I thought it would; he is 68 so I knew he wouldn't be sticking around for that much longer, but we had worked together on five continents, we've been through a lot.

Inevitably after early retirements there were layoffs announced.  Our management insisted that these had been in the works since Alstom, but couldn't be done since Alstom didn't have the cash on hand to pay the severance packages.  So the employees marked for layoffs were sent to Knorr-Bremse and we were told to deal with it.  What finally pushed Knorr-Bremse to enact the layoffs was that Alstom announced that they were only going to use European signaling products for the Metrolinx project in Toronto, where they had previously intended to use the North American signaling products that are now part of Knorr-Bremse.  Until December of last year Metrolinx had been Knorr-Bremse's largest project.  (We can take some cold comfort (or feast on sour grapes) in the fact that the current CEO of Metrolinx has never completed a project (despite ten years in the role) so it's likely we would never have supplied the signaling products anyway even if we had kept the contract. ;))

Between early retirement and layoffs we lost about 116 employees; roughly a tenth of our division's workforce.  I survived the layoffs; though I was not sure that I would.  Radio is not a core focus of the business and a number of the leadership have been questioning the need to have a Radio Frequency engineer.  I can't even get anyone to repair the Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) that I've mentioned in the previous stories; the primary tool I use for field work.


Things aren't going any better.  A few Amtrak projects have come in, but with their DOGE layoffs they're not able to respond as quickly as they used to.  A couple major projects that were expected to come in have been delayed (as is usual in rail.)  This week our management is meeting to right the ship and decide the direction that the company is going.  They're meeting at a Horse Retreat.  :alberta:

While there's likely to be be restructuring and further layoffs ahead; I'm still having difficulty getting past "Horse Retreat."

(Maybe there's a market for an Iron Horse Retreat, spend your week shoveling coal and driving a train.)
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Savonarola

#561
September 20, 2025, 11:12:46 AM
We're transitioning our IT services from Alstom to Knorr-Bremse.  One of the differences between the two systems is that employee ID numbers at Alstom are six digits, while they're eight at Knorr-Bremse.  So our new employee ID numbers are the same as the old but with a 42 in front of them.  We suspect that our new IT person is a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

HVC

#562
September 20, 2025, 11:23:28 AM
69 doesn't get the respect it used to.



:P
Being lazy is bad; unless you still get what you want, then it's called "patience".
Hubris must be punished. Severely.

Savonarola

#563
September 20, 2025, 12:02:53 PM
Quote from: HVC on September 20, 2025, 11:23:28 AM69 doesn't get the respect it used to.



:P

Hey, at least it wasn't 86.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

mongers

#564
September 20, 2025, 07:07:18 PM
Reading a history of 'Great Britain's Railways' by Colin Maggs, though it reads like the linearity  of  a train journey or railway timetable, the author even apologises in the introduction for sometimes writing about events out of chronological order. :hmm:

Anyway he records this story from the height of railway mania in the mid 1840s:

QuoteThe government announced that Sunday 30 November 1845 would be the last day for depositing plans for new railways at the Board of Trade, the offices closing at noon. In those final few days, men were rushing to London within plans. Some railway companies refused to carry people whose projects rivalled their own schemes, so imagination was used to disguise the plans as ordinary luggage.
One prospective company placed their plans in a coffin attended by mourners and this enabled the coffin to be reverently conveyed by the company that had originally refused to carry the plans.

 :bowler:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Josquius

#565
September 21, 2025, 02:45:44 AM
Reminds me of how the town of Whitley Bay, historically called Whitley, got its present name.

Local guy died whilst in Scotland and it was arranged for his coffin to be sent home to be buried.
All his friends and family stood dressed in black at the train station waiting for him to arrive....
He never came.
Meanwhile in the completely seperate far away town of Whitby a coffin turned up.

The decision was then made to add Bay to the towns name to stop this confusion.

But railway mania man. If they could see how we fail to do anything today....
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mongers

#566
September 21, 2025, 06:30:57 AM
QuoteReminds me of how the town of Whitley Bay, historically called Whitley, got its present name.

Local guy died whilst in Scotland and it was arranged for his coffin to be sent home to be buried.
All his friends and family stood dressed in black at the train station waiting for him to arrive....
He never came.
Meanwhile in the completely seperate far away town of Whitby a coffin turned up.

The decision was then made to add Bay to the towns name to stop this confusion.

But railway mania man. If they could see how we fail to do anything today....

Talking of which Josq, your town/local area is a pretty nifty place, knew a little about it but the recent Portillo documentary really highlights it's claim to fame.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Savonarola

#567
September 26, 2025, 01:42:18 PM
Up until now we have used Alstom's IT infrastructure.  This week we finally got Knorr-Bremse WiFi at our worksite.  Our IT department just sent out an e-mail saying that if we had problems they have "An guerilla army of guinea-pig nerds at every site," which I certainly hope they mean metaphorically and I'm not actually working for an evil company from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

mongers

#568
September 26, 2025, 03:16:15 PM
Quote from: Savonarola on September 26, 2025, 01:42:18 PMUp until now we have used Alstom's IT infrastructure.  This week we finally got Knorr-Bremse WiFi at our worksite.  Our IT department just sent out an e-mail saying that if we had problems they have "An guerilla army of guinea-pig nerds at every site," which I certainly hope they mean metaphorically and I'm not actually working for an evil company from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books.

 :D

An interesting turn of phrase, to my mind that sounds like if you have problems 'we've only got a poorly organised rabble who don't know what they're doing so will be learning on the job as the problems mount' *



* my contribution to world no-punctuation day. **


** which in itself is my down payment in preperation for world zero capitalisation day next week.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"
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