From the "other" part of North America, and country hosting the
next NANOG meeting.
Fairly major Train Derailment East of Winnipeg. Many Canadian carriers
affected, (This is a major 360 condo build) although most have fiber route
diversity.
I'm curious. I think I've gone the last couple of months without hearing
about any train derailments, and then between news media reports and the
NANOG list I think I've heard of four this week. A quick check of news
media websites didn't turn up anything on this one, but I may just not be
looking at the right sites.
Are train derailments common events that don't get much press coverage (or
maybe that don't get much coverage unless it's a passenger train), or was
this an especially bad week?
-Steve
Are train derailments common events that don't get much press coverage (or
maybe that don't get much coverage unless it's a passenger train), or was
this an especially bad week?
Certainly fiber along rail right of ways was easy to install - and as a result,
there's a lot of it, but trains tend to do a lot of damage when they go off track. I
would imagine there's less likelihood of such damage occurring along roadways or
other right-of-ways with the same amount of disruption is less?
And, in this age where less fiber is going in the ground, does that mean that train
derailments may become the new enemy #1, displacing the now idle backhoe's? 
According to federal records and news reports, train derailments are
up about 15% even if you take into account the growth in rail traffic.
Thursday happened to be a particularly notable day on the network.
Imagine if you were in the brand-new government Cyber-warning center
yesterday.
UUNET network-wide problems (train cuts cable or IS-IS problems?)
Earthlink 1.5 million customers out of service due to a power failure
MSNBC web site off the air due to a SYN attack
Cable & Wireless has master ticket open on their network
Explosion in NYC
LA Times leaks CIA warning about China hackers attacking US
What would you do? Would you call anyone? Who would you call?
Hint: the answer is not Sean. I can usually gauge how the network is
doing by the size of my Inbox. If I have no e-mail or several hundred
messages; something happened.
In the past few years on NANOG, I've noticed a strong correlation between
train derailments and network outages. (Not to discount the backhoe
correlation in any way of course...)
The question I have is this:
If fiber runs are trenched into the railbed, and we know that trains
go off of the tracks every now and then, what, if anything, is being
done to harden the conduit?
Would trenching it deeper help? Has encasing the conduit in a
steel-reinforced channel been examined? Or is there something about
laying conduit next to track and the accident modalities that I am
just missing here?
Given this week's higher frequency of rail accidents and their
attendant network disruptions, it seems like the cost/benefit of
looking at this issue might have shifted a bit.
I can only see these right-of-ways becoming increasingly valuable
over time and in our post 9/11 environment, this seems to be an
area that seems especially vulnerable.
Just curious...