How vulnerable are railroads to a downed utility on "the path"?
Background for my question:
Coal powered electrical utilities provide the majority source of power
to Minnesotans.ÿ 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.ÿ Suppose the train has a path
from point A (where the coal is) to point Z (where the NSP coal power
plant is).ÿ 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.ÿ 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?ÿ Is it from the local
utilities in the crossed railroad path or is it from somewhere else?ÿ Are
there failsafe/fallback power sources for those switches/signals?ÿ
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?ÿ 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.ÿ 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
ourworld.compuserve.com |
