[PRCo] WABCO touts transit automation in 1963

[Fred Schneider]

Editorial from the transcriber:   Aren't pipe dreams wonderful?   We never did have the 100 mph train.   BART was programmed to run at 80 in the catch up mode if they fell behind schedule and that was the fastest I know of.   Frankly, I don't think I want to be doing 100 mph with 90 second spacing between trains.     I freely admit that the Japanese run trains on 2 minute headways all the time ... I've seen Phil Craig's digital movies as proof but not at 100 mpg.


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w8EbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ck8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7416%2C4905827

 

Pittsburgh Press, August 30, 1963, page 8 (digital) or page 14 (print)  Financial Section

 

Computer Control

100 mph Trains One Year Off,

Air Brake Says

Operations Control Center Could Be Applied Here

 

By WILLIAM ALLEN, Press Business Editor

 

   Comfortable mass transit trains, operating at 100 miles per hour and with only 90-seond intervals between trains, could be in operation as early as next year, according to Westinghouse Air Brake Co.

    More important perhaps, existing mass transit systems could be operated faster and more reliably even before that date.

    Air Brake through its WABCO Mass Transit Center here has perfected what it terms an Operations Control Center.   The Center with its two computers fully automates controls and instantaneous communications sounds highly sophisticated and expensived

                                                                    5 Per Cent Cost

 Actually it is not.

 As has been pointed out before automatic trains (no human at the controls) are running every day in the U. S. and Canada and have been for some time.

    Air Brake officials add that the control center in its entirety costs about five percent of the cost of the transit system depending on just how large the system happens to be.

    The local company is working with cities like San Francisco, which plans a billion dollar rapid mass transit system for the entire Bay Area and the control center has been designed for the big [San Francisco] rail network. 

    Essentially, the center provides for computers (one is more or less stand by) automatic controls along the tracks, automatic propulsion and braking plus both digital and voice communications.

                                                                   Component Parts

   The computer analyzes the data, regulates the speed of the trains, orders stations stops and even corrects for rush traffic all the while keeping records for maintenance and passenger load accounting.

    More important, however, is the fact that the control system can be broken down into its components to aid, for example, the integrated mass transit system planned for Pittsburgh by the Port Authority or, say, the present Cleveland rapid transit system.

    “We could monitor the proposed Pittsburgh system and make it more reliable,” says a spokesman for Air Brake.

    Transit lanes and high-speed lanes for streets and highways reserved for mass transit would add greatly in such a bus operator as the Port Authority plan.