Automation in Uppsala? The Unseen will not be pleased.
~(The TTRPG Vaesen is set in Uppsala and focuses on conflict between fantasy and industry)~
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Oh, that kind of switchboard. I wonder what error rate there was in the overall system?
Welcome back!
Hmm, the nearby guy kind of looks like the original "Q" from the James Bond movies.
In normal operation, this machine has proper working electro-mechanical interlocks to prevent errors.
It is quite interesting to read about how railway systems worked in the past.
One of the first safety systems created to prevent train crashes was super simple, it was a token system, and worked just as you imagine, to be allowed to enter a stretch of track between two stations, the driver had to be carrying a token, there was only one token for that part, and it was handed in at the next station.
This meant that as long as the rules were followed there could only be one train on that piece of track, and traffic could only alternate.
Simple and safe, but inefficient.
Control of track switches are critical to keeping a railway line safe, depending on the setting of the switch, it will not only risk a head on collision, but also a derailment and other issues.
Most switches on a train line these days are remote controlled from an operations center, but there are switches that are controlled by mechanical keys, usually at a remote rail yard that only sees quite limited traffic.
These systems can be quite fun, the driver is issued a key to the first switch, he gets to the switch on the line, stops the train, gets out, unlocks the switch with his key and sets it to the new direction, that unlocks two more keys in the switch which he turns and removes, this locks the first switch.
These keys unlocks further switches in the train yard in a similar manner.
Once he has got his train to it's position, he uncouple the locomotive and goes back the way he came, resetting the keys and switches.
Once he has thrown the last switch and got the key out, he can be certain that everything is properly locked up, and can radio the control center that he is done and everything is safe again.
That's rather fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to write it all up. 🙂
It also reminds just a tiny bit of the Apollo moon missions, which I often listen to the audio of. They made a special point of training astronauts to think externally, not the natural process of doing so internally. That involved lots of verbal checklists, communicating extensively with each other and Mission Control over whether something had been attended to. Even stuff that they barely had any real interaction with, such as the Cosmic Ray Detector panels.
I found another picture where you can see the size of it as well as the backboard:
