Light rail in San Francisco: Farewell to floppy disks for 212 million US dollars
In San Francisco, 5.25-inch floppy disks form the basis of the light rail control system. Hundreds of millions of US dollars are now being spent to change this.
Die Muni Metro in San Francisco.
(Image: SFMTA)
The operator of the light rail system in San Francisco will pay 212 million US dollars (around 196 million euros) to update its control system to one that is no longer based on 5.25″ floppy disks. This has now been reported by the local station ABC7 Bay Area News, which also drew attention to the anachronistic technology in the spring. According to the report, the governing body of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has signed a contract with the Japanese company Hitachi Rail with the aim of modernizing the system. This should be completed by 2028.
Disks and critical infrastructure
The automatic train control system of the so-called Muni Metro was installed back in 1998 and was designed for a service life of 20 to 25 years. These have now expired and an upgrade has been a long time coming. When the system was installed, it was said to be the most modern of its time. It is responsible for the automatic control of the light rail vehicles in the tunnel under the popular Market Street. The necessary data is transmitted each time the trains enter the tunnel. The system itself is programmed every morning using three 5.25″ floppy disks.
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Aging technology, which is used at some critical points in the infrastructure, has recently caused a stir time and again. In the summer, for example, the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support invited tenders for the development of an "emulating storage system to replace the floppy disk unit" for use on warships. Just a few years earlier, a control system for US nuclear weapons was converted from 8″ floppy disks to SSDs.
(mho)
