Our Exclusive Future as Bio-Globs of Consumer Desire
The passage of the train stopped me today at a crossing on the way to the art store to buy an oil-based pencil, suitable for temporarily marking a field in an oil painting.
I know. I know. Calm yourselves.
The reason for this post was the sign at the railroad crossing:
Notice: Some of the Locomotives at this Location are Robotically Controlled.
This was not the impressive system of robot trucks and container cranes moving around a closed port area - this was a full size robot diesel locomotive, pulling a small train of tankers of oil, mixed goods, and what appeared to be chemicals, with no one but Casey Freakin' Robot Jones running the 40,000 ton thing, on busy public streets, without a crossing gate.
It was strangely difficult to find news stories about this. I did find a 2003 piece about a robot train crash in Oklahoma, and a few understandable blurbs from the union involved, which struck over the issue.
I do not doubt that statistics, collected of course by the companies involved, show that there are fewer accidents. What I doubt is whether the robot cares that it is going to crash the 12 tankers of caustic soda into the line of school buses, and act accordingly. And I suspect that sign was there for a special message: if you stall on the tracks, don't bother pleading for your life.
posted by JAB at 7:46 PM
5 Comments:
What? No crossing gate? I suppose if there had been accidents you would have heard about it, but gee whiz!
My father worked for a railroad in WV and part of his job included damage assessment and clean-up after train accidents. I've seen more train wrecks that I ever wanted to and have seen two creatures hit by trains; the man survived, the dog did not.
No crossing gate? Sure, they don't prevent all accidents but I sit here stunned and reliving some ugly memories.
I worked on a legal case involving the Alaska Railroad. while pouring through boxes of meaningless papers, I discovered that the ARR hires a union position whose express job is to clean out the bits of moose and other "Organic Matter" from the train when it pulls into the station.
Trains hitting moose in Alaska is not a small problem. It seems that Mr. Moose likes to walk on the nice firm railroad tracks rather than plunge through the 10ft high snow drifts. The problem is that once Mr. Moose gets onto the tracks, he can't get off when the train comes....Moose Nuggets for everyone.
Honestly, given the simplicity of train operation (throttle and brakes) I can't see where having a robot equipped with radar, ladar, or whatever other sensors isn't simply going to do a better job than Casey 'the bitter alcoholic' Jones.
So, with apologies to Kent Brockman:
I for one, welcome our new robot conductor overlords.
This makes me to think of a story I have heard today of the American transportation from the Dutch Minister of Overseas Development:
"I then to tell you the most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen it. Horace Greeley went along a road in the past in a stagecoach. When it left the town of Carson which it said the driver, Hank Monk, which it had an interlocking to speak at Placerville and was very impatient to pass by quickly. The Hank Monk split its whip and started at terrible intervals. The stagecoach rebounded in top and bottom in a way so terrible that it shook all the buttons with far from the coat of Horace, and finally drew his own head by the roof from the stage, and then it howled with the Hank Monk and requested him to go easier -- known as it warned inside as much of a haste while it was during some time there is. But the Hank Monk indicated, ' keep your seat, Horace, and I will arrive to you there on the time ' - - and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!"
Stranger, proceed at your peril--
Damn. Too late.
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