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Comment by InsomniacL

3 years ago

> "The manufacturer argued that this was because of malpractice by these workshops"

Is this intended to say:

    - The manufacturer says the locks are caused by malpractice of the 3rd party workshops

or

    - The manufacturer says they lock the trains because of past malpractice of the 3rd party workshops

The poster also states

> "One version of the controller actually contained GPS coordinates to contain the behaviour to third party workshops."

This seems oddly specific, there are better ways to determine if the train has been serviced by the manufacturer or not, such as using PKI.

I can imagine a scenario where this isn't for greed of servicing fees, perhaps the brakes need replacing every x miles and if this isn't performed the train locks for safety. If the 3rd party workshops specified thought

    "there's more life left in these pads, I'll just reset the counter and make the train think the pads are new"

The manufacturer would have significant backlash should the train then crash and kill people, regardless if the 3rd party workshop was at fault.

I'm all for right to repair for most things, however commercial public transport isn't one of them unless there's some vetting/accreditation process.

13 comments

InsomniacL

Reply
p_l  3 years ago

The workshops were already accredited and vetted, and followed official documentation that was supposed to cover the maintenance.

And the intended meaning of the sentence was that NEWAG implied that the workshops "did something wrong" and that's why the train didn't run.

hex4def6  3 years ago

I think you're putting very little weight into the ability of government organizations like the NTSB or equivalent to determine root cause of a crash. Just think of the situation with aircraft crashes. They have to deal with something that smeared into the ground at 400 miles an hour. And they're often still able to root cause with a high degree of confidence. I have a feeling train crashes are trivial in comparison to root cause (with rare exception).

You either require (and train) your NTSB to be able to independently diagnose accidents (in which case they would be able to tell who fudged the records about the fake brake overhaul) or you rely on the manufacturer for the diagnosis. Which to me is a concerning conflict of interest, since they will invariably want to shift the blame to the operator of the vehicle. I'm sure they could in the most honest case, point to excursions outside of recommended operating conditions during the life of the train and say "see? Your operator has been consistently taking this turn ed 10 mph faster than recommended by the manufacturer. Warranty void".. worst case they fudge the records and you have no competent independent examiner to dispute that.

  • InsomniacL  3 years ago

    > I think you're putting very little weight into the ability of government organizations like the NTSB or equivalent to determine root cause of a crash

    Not at all, I expect they will know every detail/fault/liability. In the meantime though, 'backlash'

      - Manufacture's name is in the headlines

  - That model of train may be 'grounded' or receive negative publicity

    (We see this often in Air accidents (737 MAX, Ospreys in Japan)

    Even if the manufacturer is determined to not be at fault, bad tastes linger..

      - greater scrutiny

  - % will hear of initial reports but miss later reports exonerating Manufacture

Zak  3 years ago

It's certainly reasonable for governments to require some sort of licensing or accreditation to work on safety-critical public infrastructure. It is not reasonable for another service provider to have the final say over that, especially through the use of undisclosed software locks.

celticninja  3 years ago

I disagree. The owner should be able to get them repaired without needing the manufacturer to approve.

SahAssar  3 years ago

Any of those reasons should then have been documented in public, which the poster said it was not.

JAlexoid  3 years ago

> I'm all for right to repair for most things, however commercial public transport isn't one of them unless there's some vetting/accreditation process.

That is where you literally have a contract written up, stating this. In some cases that contract is ratified by the parliament (making it effectively the law)