Background for my question:

Coal powered electrical utilities provide the majority source of power to Minnesotans. One coal-powered plant alone at Becker, according to NSP at their web site, www.nspco.com, burns three trainloads of coal a day!

The question (sorry for over-elaborating):

I have no idea how far away that coal is. Suppose the train has a path from point A (where the coal is) to point Z (where the NSP coal power plant is). Assume there are a multitude of power utilities operating (their service territory) between points A-Z, and we'll call these inter- mediate electric service utility territories points A-Z. Now imagine that just one power utility is down, or more, at one or more points in A-Z.

If the railroad uses electricity to operate the switches and signals between points A-Z, will a Year-2000 caused power failure (let's imagine a serious design flaw affecting critical components such that the downed power utility can't jury rig a quick fix and they're down for weeks or months then) -- if even only one utility is down, affecting say the area where 10-20 signals/switch systems exist on the railroad path, will such a downed utility prevent that railroad from making their coal delivery to NSP (or any other coal-based power utility)?

The question is really where is the electricity coming from that services those switches and signals along the railroad path? Is it from the local utilities in the crossed railroad path or is it from somewhere else? Are there failsafe/fallback power sources for those switches/signals?

What happens if the power grid is messed up and the local utilities are only servicing their local utility areas and only one utility on the path is down from A-Z. I ask this question if the answer to all of this is that the grid supplies the electricity and if the local utility is down, the grid supplies the electricity from whoever is supplying electricity to the grid--thus if this is the answer, my counter-question is this, which I repeat, if the grid can't supply electricity to the switches/signals and a local utility is downed, then is the railroad prevented from making that complete route?

Last, can these switches/signals be operated manually without any electricity? Or is the manual fallback option no longer in existence everywhere?

Conclusion (fears) if the answers are not pretty...

If the answers are that the railroad can't make the delivery if only one utility is downed along the path, or if the grid is disabled and local utilities are only servicing their local service areas (but one of the utilities are down along the path), and if manual fallback (when power does not exist) is no longer an option, then coal-based utilities are very much at risk in 2000. It means, again if all the above answers are "not pretty", that one bad link in the chain, breaks the chain.

Thanks for anybody's help in digging out the answers to these questions.

Roleigh Martin http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roleigh_martin

-- Anonymous, April 05, 1998

Answers

Talked to my buddy who works for Burlington-Santa Fe: Signals and switches draw their power from the local utility. They have *some* emergency generators, but limited fuel. I don't know how many switches can be operated by hand like they did 100 years ago, but I do know they have fewer employees to do it than 100 years ago. I'd say an extended outage spells real trouble, and a great need for personnel, just to keep minimal vital shipments rolling.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 1998

Response to railroad vulnerability

I spoke yesterday for quite some time with the president of Fort Worth Technologies. They are involved in the reprogramming efforts related to Y2K. Their largest client happens to be Burlinton Northern/Santa Fe. He relayed to me that this railroad company supplies 80% of this nations fuel and coal.

In their effort to fix their code, they were on schedule to complete their task prior to 2000. In the past two years they completed 10 mil lines of code and in the last couple of months discovered an additional 33 million lines of code. This now puts them 2 years behind in completion. The entire company realizes that there is no hope in finishing this code. The president just sold his house and doesn't know where he's going, but he knows what the future holds...and it doesn't look good.

-- Anonymous, April 16, 1998

While I sympathize with the plight of the Burlington/Santa Fe line (re: lines of code), you made narry a mention of the track switches, controls, and the railroad SCADA systems.

-- Anonymous, April 16, 1998

I would like to expand this important question by adding pipelines.

And then ask, has anyone on this bb actually researched the fuel sources (and original corporate producers) used by their electic utility to generate power and the specific means (rr or pipe and the corporations that own them) by which the fuel arrived? And the level of reserves kept in the area?

Here in Manhattan, I understand that 58% of our power is generated by natural gas. Con Ed gets this gas from 13 states over pipelines. I have asked ConEd to please identify the gas producers and transporters, but after 6 weeks of trying, no response.

Anyone been able to complete such a study into such dependency chains of corporate specifics for their area?

-- Anonymous, April 17, 1998

I would like to ask the status of the electrification of the Northeastern rail corridor from New Haven to Boston. What is the completion date, and what fallbacks can be taken in case of a power outage?

-- Anonymous, April 26, 1998

Your Y2k web site was brought to my attention after Greg Griffins comments on April 16 about the status of BNSF RR's Y2k effort. My name is Bruce Freeman, and I am the Chief Information Officer of BNSF RR, and I am responsible for its Y2k efforts. I would like to set the record straight with the following information. I'm not sure who Ft. Worth Technologies is, but they are NOT BNSF's primary Y2k provider. We used SPR Inc. for our assessment, and all of the ISS coding changes are being made in house. Our total BNSF owned software portfolio is approximately 20 million lines of code, of which a little over 1 million, have been identified for review of potential Y2k changes. We have been working on Y2k since the middle of 97, we have budgeted a total of $20mm for BNSF Y2k efforts over 98 & 99, and we have NOT uncovered any recent new code, or problems. At a high level, our plan calls for 6 basic steps; find the Y2k problems, prioritize the task/risk, fix them, unit test them, perform integration and regression testing, and develop contingency plans and processes for our trading partners that are not Y2k compliant (and for any BNSF owned Y2k issues if necessary). While we have work to do, we currently have a well defined plan in place, and we are on plan and on budget to be Y2k compliant by the 3rd quarter 1999. To the issue of how trains would run if there was no local power. Most electric signals can be handled by alternate means, usually by hand. While the traffic control signals will not work without electricity, all railroads today have, and utilize a standardized set of operating practices that they use in the operations of what they call "dark territory" (railroad without traffic control systems). While it is more manually intensive, it's a process that has been in place for over a hundred years and works well. One last comment, our Chairman, President, and CEO has not sold his house, (as a matter of fact, he just bought a new one in Ft. Worth) and his job is secure. Your questions or comments are welcome, please E-mail me at Bruce.Freeman@bnsf.com

-- Anonymous, May 06, 1998

Bruce your posting is music to my ears! if only everybody else was in your position. just a couple of questions:---how can you be sure that you only have to fix 5% of your software portfolio?Miss anything? seems awfully easy.---- What about embedded systems? how can you find them,test them and if nec change them?----do you believe you can make viable contingency plans for noncompliant partners?---do you believe that the "iron triangle"(phone,power,banks) will hold up?

-- Anonymous, May 07, 1998

There are several elements of the railroad "system" that could be affected by a power outage, thereby reducing "line capacity" (i.e., the number of trains that can be moved across the railroad in a day). The principal ones are:

1) Track switches - most of the important ones have "dual control" switch machines. In other words, they can be operated both by electricity and by hand. But, it takes a lot longer for the conductor or engineer to get out of the locomotive cab and operate the switch by hand than it does for the dispatcher to operate it by remote control. And, some switches on high-capacity coal-hauling routes have three switch machines each.

2) Snow melting equipment - most electrically operated track switches also have electrically operated or controlled snow melting (or snowblowing) equipment. If this stops working, the switch may have to be shoveled out and de-iced by hand during storms. Around the time of World War I, railroads had a staff of one man for every two miles of mainline track in the winter to handle this and other track maintenance chores. There are nowhere near this number of people available now.

3) Highway crossing warning devices - if these are out of service due to lack of power, the speed of trains must be reduced for safety reasons. Lowered train speeds reduce line capacity.

4) Radio base stations - the alternatives to operation by lineside signal indications involve use of radio dispatching methods, the most common of which is called Track Warrant Control. Authority is granted by radio to one train at a time to occupy a certain section of track. Older methods, which relied on paper orders transmitted by telephone to stations along the way and handed up to the engineer and conductor, have fallen into disuse and are very labor-intensive. In either case, line capacity is reduced, and freight trains are limited to a maximum speed of 49 mph (near normal for a coal train).

5) Defect detectors - Every 15 miles or so on busy routes, there are safety detectors for overheated wheel bearings and dragging equipment. If more than one of these in a row is out of service for lack of power or other reasons, there are requirements on some railroads for visual inspections by the train crew, a time consuming process.

To sum up, lack of power along the line is going to reduce line capacity if it knocks out any significant number of the facilities listed above. Especially on lines in and radiating from the Powder River Basin area of Wyoming, many of the railroads carrying coal are currently operating at near maximum capacity. A line capacity reduction in this area would have immediate effect on the volume of coal that could be moved.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 1998

Mr. Freeman's comment that..., "I am the Chief Information Officer of BNSF RR, and I am responsible for its Y2k efforts....I'm not sure who Ft. Worth Technologies is..." is interesting. After hearing of the inital post in this thread I called Ft. Worth Technologies, and was told by a secretary that they do Y2k remediation work, and are doing it for Burlington Northern.

-- Anonymous, May 19, 1998

Two points not previously mentioned are going to be traffic density on the coal routes and locomotive availability. Y2K will likely cause a major reduction in non-critical traffic. Who's going to need to be shipping car parts, new cars, UPS packages, rolls of newsprint, ore and minerals during the initial days of y2k? Look for fuel, food and not much else on the rails during the initial phase of recovery. A possibly overlooked impact of y2k is the railroad's newer locomotives. Since the mid-eighties, most new locomotives use electronic controls systems similar to autos. Are these systems y2k compliant? Are there enough older, purely electro-mechanical controlled locomotives available for critical cargoes? Have the railroads accidentally sold-off or scrapped the old technology needed to conquer their y2k challenge?

-- Anonymous, August 21, 1998

Questions I always have, whenever the "manual overide" option is introduced, usually with the disclaimer that "more people would have to be hired" 1. When, if ever, was your manual overide system last used or tested 2. How many people will it take to run it manually 3. How much training will those people have to have 4. Will you have to hire & train new people to do manual overide 5. If so, when are you planning to hire/train them 6. If not, I assume you're planning on retraining existing personnel, if so, when will you train them and who will do their jobs while they're doing the manual stuff

-- Anonymous, August 22, 1998

For several years I worked in a special trackwork shop as a designer/draftsman. The question of power failure at some point on the line reminded me that in hard winter territory many switches have electric switch heaters attached to them, to keep them from freezing up.

A frozen switch can be thawed by a couple of guys with torches, but it takes a while. And it'll freeze up again pretty quickly if the weather is right.

I imagine this problem would be especially critical in marshalling yards.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1998

One other consideration is that even if the rails are at full capacity NOW, shortly after any large blackout, there will be less coal burned as EU's strat fixing the electronics. Less coal burned = less trains needed per day which matches the lower capacity whil operating in the "dark". Thus the fact that they are now running near capacity means little.

-- Anonymous, December 23, 1998

Two Items - On the Railroads - not many people noticed in the midst of numerous downsizing layoff reports around Thanksgiving to new rail conglomerate - UnionPacific/SouthernPacific which just merged in computer chaos a year or so ago has announced the greatest hiring program in Railroad history - 60,000 new people over the next 12 years to handle all the "new business" they expect. This told me that they had learned from disaster of trying to merge their two computer systems that they coundn't fix y2k and are preparing to go manual. That's my take on it anyway. I have not seen this idea posted anywhere or on any news report.

On the electrical power companies, I think that some are more important than others. I have serious doubts that my power company, Entergy, is going to make it, particularly since they are planning to spend their 40 million y2k budget well into the middle of 2000 and as of last month they had only spent about 15% of that money. Entergy powers east Texas, Lousiana, Arkansas and Missippi. What makes Entergy so important is that a substantial majority of the natural gas in the US, and a sizable percentage of the oil and refined chemical products originate in Entergy's territory and there are thousands of pipelines which run from here to all over the US, particularly the east coast.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 1998