eli@cisco.com (Steve Elias) (04/01/91)
thomas%mvac23.uucp@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) wrote: > My question for those in the know: What was the cause of the fiber > break which caused the Sprint outage last week? Details please. If > it was along a RR right-of-way (and buried) how was it cut? Not by a > train wreck I assume? Right? Wrong! According to the local news here in the bay area, the fiber was cut by the train wreck. The video they showed made this easy to believe. The train wreck had ripped up the track badly, along with all sorts of other stuff that must have been under or along side the track. The newsfolk did make some comment indicating that those who had put the fiber down may not have gotten the appropriate permissions from the track owners, however. As an aside, there was a similar controversy (but no train wreck or fiber cut) in Framingham, MA about a year ago. eli
jim@slxinc.specialix.com (04/04/91)
In vol. 11, issue 261 Steve Elias <eli@cisco.com> wrote: > The newsfolk did make some comment indicating that those who had put > the fiber down may not have gotten the appropriate permissions from > the track owners, however. As an aside, there was a similar > controversy (but no train wreck or fiber cut) in Framingham, MA about > a year ago. Sprint did have permissions to put the fiber alongside that track. When they put the fiber in they had to shut that line down and ran work trains to haul equipment and supplies. They did the same thing when MCI put the fiber along the track from San Jose to San Francisco, only since that line is double track they only shut down one track. Many railroads are now getting large sums of money for letting the phone companies put in fiber along their right-of-way, and as we've seen in this wreck and the wreck in Cajon Pass a couple of years ago (which also had an oil pipeline rupture) show that these fibers can be disrupted. Both this wreck and the one in Cajon Pass were on the Southern Pacific, a large "ICC Class One" railroad, imagine what could happen on some of the smaller short lines with low quality trackwork. Maybe the long distrance carriers should have redundant fiber on a different routing? (Like also along the Union Pacific from San Jose to Oakland.) That way one wreck won't disrupt the long distance network. Jim Maurer Specialix Inc. jim@specialix.com