Update: CSX train derailment

Brian Wallingford brian at meganet.net
Sat Jul 21 16:35:08 UTC 2001


There's a paper out from a civil engineering grad student at either
Rutgers or Princeton that examines, among other things, available rights
of way and the who, where and how of their use.  It's an extremely 
interesting read.

One interesting point made within is that in over 90% of urban and
suburban areas in the U.S. which are traversed by rivers, bridges are
spaced an average of less than 6 miles apart.  Of those, over 75% fall
within either state or federal responsibility, and include rights of way
for cabling, water, etc.

I'll dig up the title/author on Monday.

-brian

On Sat, 21 Jul 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:

:Have you checked available rights of way lately? They haven't changed much
:for quite a while. Telecom has not really any ability to build dedicated
:bridges for telcom fibre. It uses existing facilities wherever possible.
:Following the paths of least cost/resistance, this pretty much determines
:that rivers and bridges become choke-points. The only real alternatives are
:microwave towers (a cost/benefit argument I won't touch, even with your
:ten-foot pole).
:
:WRT the other comment about that MCI conduit on the tunnel wall, I have
:reports that temperatures are exceeding 1000F, near the fire. I submit that
:no amount of armor-clading is going to shield that cable, from those temps.
:The only cable that might survive is whatever may be buried under the
:road-bed.
:
:> -----Original Message-----
:> From: Brian Wallingford [mailto:brian at meganet.net]
:> Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 1:28 AM
:> To: Sean Donelan
:> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
:> Subject: Re: Update: CSX train derailment
:> 
:> 
:> 
:> "Rivers and bridges"?
:> 
:> Either Frank is sensationalizing his comments for the benefit of the
:> press, or he's been asleep since '93.
:> 
:> Seems to me the so-called "choke-points" now are more social 
:> and fiscal
:> than physical - I doubt rivers and bridges are much of an issue.
:> 
:> 
:> 
:> 
:> 
:> :According to the Baltimore Sun, companies have laid 30,000 feet of
:> :emergency fiber to patch around the damage in the Howard Tunnel.
:> :
:> :  "There was a ripple effect around the country with 
:> corporate networks
:> :   due to this Baltimore disaster," said Frank Stanton, an 
:> executive with
:> :   Lexent Inc., a New York-based company that repaired 
:> fiber-optic cable
:> :   after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. "Everybody 
:> thinks they
:> :   have redundancy, but these type incidents show people 
:> there are huge
:> :   issues. When you cross rivers and bridges, these choke 
:> points are the
:> :   Achilles' heel." 
:> :
:> :On the Washington DC to New York City fiber route, there seems to be
:> :at least one train derailment leading to significant network traffic
:> :re-routes every year.
:> 
:




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