Russian Convoys
This article on Railway Gazette is entitled Five-Train Platoons To Operate With Virtual Coupling.
This is the first paragraph.
Russian Railways is planning to use platooning technology to operate flights of up to five freight trains next year using radio data exchange between locomotives to create a virtual coupling. The aims to reduce headways from 12 to 6 to 8 min, increasing capacity on congested sections of the Trans-Siberian main line.
As a Control Engineer, I must believe that if the Russians get the programming right, then it should work.
Similar techniques will probably be used with digital signalling in the UK and Europe, where each train is controlled by the signalling. But each train will probably have a driver.
The problem in Russia could also be the large number of ungated level crossings, which according to some I’ve met are prone to a lot of accidents, as drivers regularly chance it after too much vodka.
The Anonymous Widower 
BNSF have been doing this for decades.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_power
Comment by R Mark Clayton | September 10, 2021 |