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| London Transport (uk.transport.london) Discussion of all forms of transport in London. |
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#11
October 24th 16, 08:05 AM
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Battersea extension
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#13
October 24th 16, 08:58 AM
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Battersea extension
In article , (Someone
Somewhere) wrote: On 23/10/2016 00:41, wrote: A substantial cottage industry grew up finding and repairing such radios to keep the railway going. No doubt the same sort of thing will have to happen with the successor GSM-R technology. I'd hope it wasn't necessary - from memory of my short time playing with GSM-R the vast majority of the "technology" was just a big IN platform in the network and a vast number of strange rules, so realistically any GSM handset should work (although were there changes to ensure they worked at full HST speeds, in which case I wish the cottage industry luck with fixing that kind of thing!) Actually - I've just looked and they decided to use different frequencies which introduced a level of protectionism that seems unnecessary. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly but the cottage industry is for the NRN (and radio signalling in the Highlands) environment, not GSM-R which I think has now replaced NRN. For a long time NRN had shut down in the south but continued in the north. Maybe you are right that a similar industry will not arise for GSM-R in due course but there is no successor on the horizon at present of course. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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#14
October 24th 16, 08:58 AM
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Battersea extension
In article , d () wrote:
On Sat, 22 Oct 2016 18:41:57 -0500 wrote: In article , (tim...) wrote: You can usually expect to get guaranteed supply for 5-7 years out of a supplier, but more than that and you are stuck having to make alternative arrangements. You might stretch a repair stock to 10-12 years by buying in before an item becomes obsolete, but 30 years! And with modern electronics, the timescales get shorter and shorter. I disagree - it depends on what components you use. If you use some specialist flavour of the month DSP then sure, you're going to have problems down the line (pun intended), but plenty of old components are still available. Want a new Z80 in 2016? No problem. Ditto plenty of other kit. So its up to the manufacturer to choose items that he can make a fair guess will still be around in 10-20 years time and if that means using a discrete CPU + TTL and I/O chips instead of some all in one DSP or SoC then thats what they'll have to do. As for traction kit its not as if no one makes thyristors any more. You completely misunderstand electronics manufacturing. Kit has only got smaller because functions are more and more integrated into single chips. Yet radios manufactured back to the mid-80s are still today installed in train cabs and used at least until recently. A substantial cottage industry grew up finding and repairing such radios to keep the railway going. No doubt the same sort of thing will have to happen with the successor GSM-R technology. And you've rather proved my point there - if the components or suitable substitutes weren't available then these radios wouldn't be repairable. They're repaired by cannibalisation, silly! -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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#15
October 24th 16, 09:05 AM
posted to uk.transport.london
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Battersea extension
On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 03:58:55 -0500
wrote: In article , d () wrote: So its up to the manufacturer to choose items that he can make a fair guess will still be around in 10-20 years time and if that means using a discrete CPU + TTL and I/O chips instead of some all in one DSP or SoC then thats what they'll have to do. As for traction kit its not as if no one makes thyristors any more. You completely misunderstand electronics manufacturing. Kit has only got smaller because functions are more and more integrated into single chips. The size of the motherboard might matter for consumer kit, but its hardly significant when you're building something as big as a train. Also you might want to consider how aircraft manufacturers manage. You think Boeing or Airbus are going to say to BA or Virgin "Sorry lads, but we can't get the parts for the avionics or engine control system any more, you're going to have to scrap that 20 year old $100million 747/A340". Of course not. And you've rather proved my point there - if the components or suitable substitutes weren't available then these radios wouldn't be repairable. They're repaired by cannibalisation, silly! Ok , I misunderstood. -- Spud |
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#16
October 24th 16, 09:09 AM
posted to uk.transport.london
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Battersea extension
On 24/10/2016 09:58, wrote:
In article , (Someone Somewhere) wrote: On 23/10/2016 00:41, wrote: A substantial cottage industry grew up finding and repairing such radios to keep the railway going. No doubt the same sort of thing will have to happen with the successor GSM-R technology. I'd hope it wasn't necessary - from memory of my short time playing with GSM-R the vast majority of the "technology" was just a big IN platform in the network and a vast number of strange rules, so realistically any GSM handset should work (although were there changes to ensure they worked at full HST speeds, in which case I wish the cottage industry luck with fixing that kind of thing!) Actually - I've just looked and they decided to use different frequencies which introduced a level of protectionism that seems unnecessary. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly but the cottage industry is for the NRN (and radio signalling in the Highlands) environment, not GSM-R which I think has now replaced NRN. For a long time NRN had shut down in the south but continued in the north. Maybe you are right that a similar industry will not arise for GSM-R in due course but there is no successor on the horizon at present of course. No - I understood you - it's just that if they are GSM derived devices almost everything will be on a very small number of chips and hence the concept of repair may be incredibly difficult, but then again if somewhere in the heart of a big cab GSM-R set is the guts of an old Nokia 6310i or similar then it may be very easy to source parts for a while. |
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#17
October 24th 16, 11:13 AM
posted to uk.transport.london
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Battersea extension
In article , (Someone
Somewhere) wrote: On 24/10/2016 09:58, wrote: In article , (Someone Somewhere) wrote: On 23/10/2016 00:41, wrote: A substantial cottage industry grew up finding and repairing such radios to keep the railway going. No doubt the same sort of thing will have to happen with the successor GSM-R technology. I'd hope it wasn't necessary - from memory of my short time playing with GSM-R the vast majority of the "technology" was just a big IN platform in the network and a vast number of strange rules, so realistically any GSM handset should work (although were there changes to ensure they worked at full HST speeds, in which case I wish the cottage industry luck with fixing that kind of thing!) Actually - I've just looked and they decided to use different frequencies which introduced a level of protectionism that seems unnecessary. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly but the cottage industry is for the NRN (and radio signalling in the Highlands) environment, not GSM-R which I think has now replaced NRN. For a long time NRN had shut down in the south but continued in the north. Maybe you are right that a similar industry will not arise for GSM-R in due course but there is no successor on the horizon at present of course. No - I understood you - it's just that if they are GSM derived devices almost everything will be on a very small number of chips and hence the concept of repair may be incredibly difficult, but then again if somewhere in the heart of a big cab GSM-R set is the guts of an old Nokia 6310i or similar then it may be very easy to source parts for a while. Cannibalisation as I said. But there's no need for the foreseeable future as I presume there are currently manufactured models that could replace older GSM-R kit. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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#18
October 24th 16, 11:13 AM
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Battersea extension
In article , d () wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 03:58:55 -0500 wrote: In article , d () wrote: So its up to the manufacturer to choose items that he can make a fair guess will still be around in 10-20 years time and if that means using a discrete CPU + TTL and I/O chips instead of some all in one DSP or SoC then thats what they'll have to do. As for traction kit its not as if no one makes thyristors any more. You completely misunderstand electronics manufacturing. Kit has only got smaller because functions are more and more integrated into single chips. The size of the motherboard might matter for consumer kit, but its hardly significant when you're building something as big as a train. I think the difference between the mid-80s radio and its predecessor was having a single board. The FM1000 model was very different and that was no longer manufacturable by the late 1990s because manufacturing had switched to chip placement and the capability to manually assemble boards at affordable costs had gone. Also you might want to consider how aircraft manufacturers manage. You think Boeing or Airbus are going to say to BA or Virgin "Sorry lads, but we can't get the parts for the avionics or engine control system any more, you're going to have to scrap that 20 year old $100million 747/A340". Of course not. I can see the problem but not how they answered it. It won't be cheap, that's for sure. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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#19
October 24th 16, 01:49 PM
posted to uk.transport.london
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Battersea extension
On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 06:13:04 -0500
wrote: In article , d () wrote: Also you might want to consider how aircraft manufacturers manage. You think Boeing or Airbus are going to say to BA or Virgin "Sorry lads, but we can't get the parts for the avionics or engine control system any more, you're going to have to scrap that 20 year old $100million 747/A340". Of course not. I can see the problem but not how they answered it. It won't be cheap, that's for sure. I'm pretty sure its all modular so you can unplug an old module and plug in a new one with exactly the same I/O ports and protocols but whatever is inside may be completely new. I find it hard to believe that something isn't done on trains to allow them to be kept going after the original electronics components are no longer available. -- Spud |
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#20
October 24th 16, 05:49 PM
posted to uk.transport.london
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Battersea extension
In article , d () wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 06:13:04 -0500 wrote: In article , d () wrote: Also you might want to consider how aircraft manufacturers manage. You think Boeing or Airbus are going to say to BA or Virgin "Sorry lads, but we can't get the parts for the avionics or engine control system any more, you're going to have to scrap that 20 year old $100million 747/A340". Of course not. I can see the problem but not how they answered it. It won't be cheap, that's for sure. I'm pretty sure its all modular so you can unplug an old module and plug in a new one with exactly the same I/O ports and protocols but whatever is inside may be completely new. I find it hard to believe that something isn't done on trains to allow them to be kept going after the original electronics components are no longer available. It might be done that way now but we're talking about technologies implemented 30 years ago. -- Colin Rosenstiel |
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