#train engineer

[afriblaq]

septaphilly

After 40 years #SEPTA’s first female train engineer - Jackie Pettyjohn aka First Lady of SEPTA - celebrated her last day yesterday.

She never saw herself as a pioneer - being the first of anything.

Jackie came into the job in August 1984 after she saw and responded to an ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Within a matter of weeks - the job was hers and her unexpected career as a game-changer had begun.

She has said she had no intention of staying but she ended up falling in love with the job and despite the demanding hours found a way to balance work and family.

The crowd who came out to celebrate Jackie’s last ride is evidence of the impact and inspiration she leaves behind.

Congrats Jackie!

[alicebrightstar]

SteamTrain Willie! (Reimagined)🤎❤️💙✨

My Redesign/Reimagined for the steamboat Willie characters since it got public domain

[whirligig-girl]

Ensign Guz plays Railroader in the Cerritos Holodeck.

[mapleashes]

I tried making my own humanized AEG Thomas but he ended up looking unoriginal. Maybe I’ll fix his design later…

If I have motivation, I’ll probably make the others! 💙

[chaoticedward]

not what he meant.

[thekalpar]

God's will is what it is.

[arkethamz]

not cringetober bc i was busy today

but i did get a doodle done for 40 years of thomas the tank engine <3

[foone]

Have you heard about the Polish Train company, Newag, and the bullshit it turns out they got up to?

So, the regional rail operator Koleje Dolnośląskie bought some Newag Impuls back in 2016 . In late 2021, some of them need to have major maintenance done, as they've been in service a while. So the company SPS (Serwis Pojazdów Szynowych) gets the contract to fix them. They basically take the train apart, replace a bunch of it, following all the rules in the documentation Newag gave them, and... it won't move. The train says everything is fine, the brakes are off, there's plenty of power, but you push the throttle up and it won't move.

SPS spends a while trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong, with no luck. So they hire some hackers from the Polish security group Dragon Sector. Dragon Sector figures out how to get into the code of the computer system that runs the train, and OH MY GOD.

So it turns out there's a secret train-lock system. If it's on, the train won't move. This will be triggered in some situations you might think are normal: the clocks are wrong, the serial numbers of the various parts have changed, and a firmware mismatch between the main computer and the power system. Now, the fact that it makes sense to not run the train in these situations until someone can check it? that doesn't extend to the fact the train uses a SECRET lock system, rather than just popping up an error message telling you what's wrong. There's also the problem that while these are all potential error problems, they can't be cleared by anyone with the technical manuals, which are supposed to cover everything about how to run these trains. Only Newag themselves can reset this system.

Which, you know, keeps SPS from properly fixing them. Only Newag can fix them now, but not because SPS lacks any technical ability, but because Newag sabotaged their own trains. But don't worry: it gets worse.

So now that Dragon Sector knows what's happening, they get to look at other trains. It turns out the trains aren't all running the same software, and there are other tricks in there.

One of them is a "how long has the train been stopped?" check. If the train hasn't hit 60 km/h in 10 days, the train locks itself and won't move until Newag can clear it. So, like, if a train is ever out of service, like it's going to a repair place... it'll break itself. Unless the repair place is owned by Newag.

But two of the trains go further: See, these trains have GPS built in, right? You may be able to guess where this is going...

THEY JUST MAKE THE TRAIN CHECK IF IT IS PARKED AT THEIR COMPETITORS' REPAIR YARD AND BREAK ITSELF IF IT WAS.

The sheer audacity of this move. This is frighteningly bullshit anti-competition self-sabotage.

This has, obviously, made some parts of the Polish government to start investigating this. Newag may be (and hopefully will be) in a lot of trouble.

For more info, there's a great video of a presentation by the three people from Dragon Sector who did the hacking, which was presented at the 37th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.

Ars Technica also has an article on it, but it predates the presentation so it doesn't have some of the later details.

Anyway, the good news is that in the end the hackers at Dragon Sector were able to unlock most of the trains: A few had additional trickery that they didn't want to hack around, because it might break the train's certification. For the others, they discovered undocumented "cheat codes" in the software that they could use to bypass the secret lockouts... presumably the same ones that Newag would have used when they "repaired" trains.

[jackedknife]

TF2 Disco Elysium crossover let’s go

me after combining two of my current fixations:

[slothnobility]

💋💋💋

lemme know if you bingo'd on this lolol i must know for science

[chuffedchough]

“IT AIN’T THE SAME WEST!”

A while back I did a poll asking if we reckon Jed is a fan of trains, this very, very silly comic is why.

[tumblebagel]

So... I appear to have blacked out last night, and woke up with this open on my computer

Is... Is this something anyone would actually play?

@ayviedoesthings is the creator of the temporary background I'm using, though if this does end up getting fully developed, the cave would be a visit-able location

Edit: wait it’s @nyxisart who did the background! My bad!

[itsmedemibones]

Someone take my pen away from me

[maximaldraws]

I mean, this train kinda drives itself, right?

[sodorcentral]

No caption