Why does the Transrapid Maglev system appear to have an on board driving position?
Answers:
The same reason that all aircraft still have pilots even though it has been possible to control everything by computers for years. we humans don't trust computers and want to have another human in control even if they aren't. Once we accept that computers don't make mistakes and humans do, then the driver's and pilot's seats will disappear from trains and planes
hmm let me think. maybe the computers will crash, so to stop disruption to services a driver is put on board.
Radio controlled operation of yard switching operations has been in service quite some time. And, in that time, the number of collisions and fatalities in rail yards has increased three fold when compared to man hours worked for the same service.
A computer will never be able to operate tonnage trains over existing class one railroad trackage. It is not an airplane with limited variables as a part of day to day operations. It is when training takes over, and a human is at the controls, that air disasters are avoided, or the consequences are minimized. Ask the passengers of the plane that was "landed" by three pilots working throttle and flaps after hydraulic lines had been severed, if they would have preferred a computer at the "controls", which no longer worked. I say ask them, because 2/3s of the passengers can still answer as they walked away from the disaster.
Same thing with that tonnage freight train that will roll through your town sometime tonight. A typical consist? How about 680,000 gallons of LPG, 3,500 tons of fertilizer (ammonium nitrate. Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols did some handy work with three or four fifty gallon drums of the stuff mixed with diesel fuel in Oklahoma City a few years back, remember? Reference above mentioned tonnage mixed with, say, 12,000 gallons of diesel, mixed as a result of a derailment. Oh. yeah. Let's put the computers in control right away!), toss in some ammonia, cholrine, maybe a couple thousand tons of coal, some hygrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid, lumber and, just for good measure, a few carloads of phosphorus and cyanide based chemicals.
Add another 5,000 tons of mixed merchandise.
And, double all of that if there is a head on collision or a derailment plows into a train standing on an adjacent track or tracks.
Yep. Turn it over to the "un-erring" computers. This is the same mindset that keeps people from demanding of DHS and representatives in Washington that some measure be taken to try to guard against using these same vehicles as weapons. It will make the twin towers look like a warm up act. And it is much easier to do.
Why don't you all ask your favorite political hopefuls how this scenario plays into their attempts to improve security?
We're going to eat this stuff if we don't. The railroaders and unions have been beating this drum for sometime with NO ATTENTION PAID AT ALL.
Better wake up.....
Probably the same reason that the Docklands in London has driver controls in a cabinet at the front of the train. For when the computer goes wrong, or when people are on the tracks.
The answers post by the user, for information only, UKQnA.com does not guarantee the right.