Talk:Centralized traffic control

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To-do list	Pending tasks for Centralized traffic control:	(purge cache –  edit this list)
	Add photos of a CTC panel and of dispatchers doing their jobs Add information on the development of CTC system Organization of headings and information. (A lot of what I've written and plan to write can fall under many headings--cluth 05:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)) Take info as appropriate from railway signalling and railway signals Operation in CTC: Control of absolute signals and switches into passing sidings (how dispatchers route traffic) How intermediate signals relate to each other and to absolute signals Track and time Everything else! User:Cluth would like to get this article in a working state by on or around Wednesday, September 20... References: GCOR, history
See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo

Contents 1 General Railway Signal Company, and their "NX" CTC system?? 2 Suppliers (was Commercial implementations) 3 Dark Territory 4 Moving vs Fixed Block

[edit] General Railway Signal Company, and their "NX" CTC system??

First of all, what has happened to GRS, and who is currently producing their NX CTC cquipment. I've looked, and can't find anything on the net that shows that they ever existed, and yet I know better. After all, GRS's NX system was the first practical CTC system on the planet. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 21:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

General Railway Signal Co. of Rochester, New York, USA, is now a part of Alstom Signaling, a division of Alstom Transport.

The statement that "GRS's NX system was the first practical CTC system on the planet" is inaccurate, as the company had launched its first CTC system in Ohio in 1927 — a good decade prior to GRS's first NX installation, or that of competitor Union Switch & Signal's "Union Route" system. The traditional unit lever-based CTC systems were much more prevalent than the route-oriented NX and UR systems because of the expense of the route systems.

Modern North American office control systems are nearly all CRT-based and most allow selection of an extended route (akin to the way NX systems worked) as well as allowing control of individual appliances. So while these use similar principles to NX machines, the logic is all in software rather than being wired networks composed of electromechanical relays as in the original systems. So there's really no one making GRS's original NX systems; the nature of control systems has evolved so radically over the years, that the only common trait between the 1930s systems and today's is conceptual. — JonRoma 23:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suppliers (was Commercial implementations)

So what constitutes a CTC system — the [office] control equipment? The trackside equipment? The operating rules that function in conjunction with the other elements of the system?

Personally, I view the list of suppliers as less relevant to this page than would be a detailed functional description of CTC systems — after all the same companies make a variety of other railway control equipment like highway crossing protection equipment, wayside signaling, cab signals, etc., all of which are orthogonal to whether a line is under CTC control or not. Probably deserves to be in a separate article ("Railway control system suppliers" or some such). However, given that the CTC article is little more than a stub, I would view a separation to be ill considered at this time. — JonRoma 23:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dark Territory

Although CTC strictly speaking implies that the central office has control over the field devices, today's railroad dispatchers usually monitor and control dark territory as well as CTC. It may be worthwhile to discuss dark territory topics like Dark Territory Control (DTC), Track Warrant Control (TWC), Positive Train Control (PTC) and the various operating rules (GCOR, NORAC, CROR) in this or related articles.Truthanado 03:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC) 03:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There is already extensive discussion (some of it courtesy of yours truly) in the North American railway signaling article, especially in the Modern signaling in the U.S. section. I'm not sure that it needs to be duplicated here. cluth 04:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving vs Fixed Block

This article currently describes fixed block signaling principles. Though used more in transit systems, moving block is becoming more common in railroads, and this might be a worthwhile additional topic in this and related articles.Truthanado 03:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC) 03:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, moving-block signaling is not in (widespread) use on any major North American railroad (transit systems excluded). And in any case, moving-block systems are not related to CTC, so this wouldn't be the appropriate place to discuss that. cluth 05:00, 7 April 2007 (UTC)