'Here's my guess... if the calendar rolls over tomorrow, it will be like
the UP debacle, the UPS strike, the S&L crisis, an ATC failure, a power
blackout, the Galaxy IV satellite outage and a 1000 point drop on the
DOW and more, all at once but about 100 times worse. Because it won't be
just UP, it will be every freight car in the country, the FAA, and the
Telcos, all scrambling at the same time.
_______
'From:
kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net (cory hamasaki)
14:23
Subject:
Re: Railroads Will Not Make It
On Tue, 25 Aug 1998 21:22:11, fedinfo@halifax.com wrote:
...stuff on the arlington - alexandria switchyard and rail in general.
> It was apparent then, that rail roads would not roll. Cory would you care to
> update this piece?
The only updates I've seen are Paul Makinen's information on how RAILINC
has outsourced the Y2K remediation to GEISCO, the General Electric
Information Services Company headquartered in Rockville Maryland.
A good choice... GEISCO's forte is telecommunications.
He also found reports that stated that RAILINC is moving both the
operations for the freight car tracking system and the development away
from Washington DC. It is not wise to move both groups when there is a
crisis project in the works... but management marches to its own
drummer.
Makinen found help wanted ads from GEISCO seeking communcations
programmers to work on a rail system.
Unless you're asking if they're bulldozing the shopping center to put
the railyard back in... no, they haven't done that yet.
What I don't understand is... as clueless as I am, it seems pretty
obvious that there's a disinformation campaign going on.
If rail is OK, and Senator Bennett's staff is concerned and is asking
questions, why doesn't RAILINC simply prove to the Senator that there
isn't a problem.
An important note... as far as I know, the switches in the warehouse
story came from Senator Bennett's people and *not* c.s.y2k.
I also don't understand how railroad bob (his userid is too cryptic to
recall.) can state that the UP billion dollar failure was simply a
problem caused by too much business... or was it bad policy but oops,
someone found an admission that it was an IT failure... but wait, power,
communications, were all working... and makinen found the press release
where GEISCO won the Y2K remediation job... but everything is fine,
professionals are working on it. Railroads don't have a Y2K problem,
experts have told us that and we should believe them and not:
1) press releases that they've outsourced the Y2K remediation. This
proves that Rail has a Y2K problem.
2) their president when he says UP had an IT failure. Confirming that
computer problems in ideal conditions can snarl rail traffic for months.
and oh yes, it's like a TV show, the truth is out there....
I'm reminded of the recent air traffic control failure... no planes
crashed so that proves that there won't be problem... our brains
are too small to know that the air traffic controllers will use pieces
of paper to keep track of the planes. Come on people. If the big,
expensive computer system is unnecessary, lets shut it down rightnow.
pull the plug, rightnow... if it's really unnecessary.
The fact is, we're running on the edge of failure all the time and we've
used up our luck.
Here's my guess... if the calendar rolls over tomorrow, it will be like
the UP debacle, the UPS strike, the S&L crisis, an ATC failure, a power
blackout, the Galaxy IV satellite outage and a 1000 point drop on the
DOW and more, all at once but about 100 times worse. Because it won't be
just UP, it will be every freight car in the country, the FAA, and the
Telcos, all scrambling at the same time.
I haven't seen any evidence of substantive remediation. We've had
some pathetic chirpings that no one's proved that anything will fail,
prove it, prove it. ...so it must be OK.
..but that's not the issue. The issue is, where ever anyone's looked,
popped the hood, so to speak, we haven't found a big V-8 engine, we've
seen a cage with two gerbils running in a circle.
Mostly though, we're asked to 'trust us', professionals are working on
it. ...and when ever you look, maybe send in the Inspector General, we
find that everything's faked. Oh, and the information that the SEC
demanded... it's spin doctored and homogenized until it doesn't reveal
any information.
> --
> Paul Milne
>
> "If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast"
cory hamasaki 11,824 hours.
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