Only Partial PTC by 2015 say the 'Big Boys'

[The Davy Crockett]

This news release from the Association of American Railroads says that tomorrow representitives of the large frieght railroads are going to tell Congress that PTC on all 60,000 miles of track required by Congressional mandate by 2015 is not going to happen.

Shocking, I know. :giggle:

 

[the_traveler]

So the "P" in PTC does in fact stand for "partial"! :giggle:

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Yeah, I knw this was going to happen. Look like Amtrak won't get much improvements for a while now.

 

[Nathanael]

This news release from the Association of American Railroads says that tomorrow representitives of the large frieght railroads are going to tell Congress that PTC on all 60,000 miles of track required by Congressional mandate by 2015 is not going to happen.
Shocking, I know. :giggle:

They can start paying their fines in 2015, then. The federal government will be happy to collect the fines, it'll be a nice budget booster.

 

[Nathanael]

I really have no sympathy with the foot-dragging of the Class Is -- foot-dragging which is *actually criminal* -- given that Amtrak and Metrolink will have their PTC systems complete well ahead of the deadline.

 

[Paulus]

I really have no sympathy with the foot-dragging of the Class Is -- foot-dragging which is *actually criminal* -- given that Amtrak and Metrolink will have their PTC systems complete well ahead of the deadline.

On the other hand, Caltrain.

 

[Nathanael]

I really have no sympathy with the foot-dragging of the Class Is -- foot-dragging which is *actually criminal* -- given that Amtrak and Metrolink will have their PTC systems complete well ahead of the deadline.

On the other hand, Caltrain.

I don't have sympathy for Caltrain either. ;-)

 

[Trogdor]

Yeah, I knw this was going to happen. Look like Amtrak won't get much improvements for a while now.

What improvements?

PTC has nothing to do with improving passenger service. In fact, service will get worse with PTC. Metrolink is already crying about how much time they're going to have to add to their schedules, on top of lengthened turn times for data syncing and downloads, when PTC is activated on their system. Watch for OTP to dip until they can get a handle on just how much PTC is screwing them, then watch the schedules get longer.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Yeah, I knw this was going to happen. Look like Amtrak won't get much improvements for a while now.

What improvements?

PTC has nothing to do with improving passenger service. In fact, service will get worse with PTC. Metrolink is already crying about how much time they're going to have to add to their schedules, on top of lengthened turn times for data syncing and downloads, when PTC is activated on their system. Watch for OTP to dip until they can get a handle on just how much PTC is screwing them, then watch the schedules get longer.

What's the big issue of PTC? I thought it would improve reliability and sometimes even speed.

 

[Trogdor]

PTC is to stop engineers from violating certain operating rules (namely, those associated with signals, speed restrictions, work zone limits, etc.), nothing more. It never had anything to do with reliability or speed.

In order to ensure that a train doesn't go where/when it's not supposed to, PTC takes an extremely conservative approach to train handling. This means that engineers will have to slow down or stop long in advance of when they would normally have to if they just ran the train like they were trained (so to speak) to do.

While some semblance of PTC was required in order to get approval for higher speeds (such as the 110 mph service in the Midwest), PTC in and of itself does not get you the higher speeds (there's also the little issue of track and signal upgrades, grade crossing upgrades or separations, and a much higher standard of maintenance). So, all your 79 mph track would still be 79 (or, I guess by rule it could be 80, but that's virtually the same thing), all your slower-than-79 track will still be slower than 79, except now you'll be slowing down a lot more because the computer tells you to, stopping further from the signal because the computer tells you to (which means if there's a red signal at the end of a platform, right now the engineer can pull right up to that signal so the station work can still be done while waiting for the signal to upgrade; but with PTC that train might have to stop a couple hundred feet short of the signal, which means they may not be able to work the station until after they get a better signal indication).

I actually can't think of a single improvement to service that will come from PTC (unless that PTC is packaged with other infrastructure changes to allow higher speeds, which isn't going to happen except for the few already-funded HSR corridors). While one could argue that the improved safety is an upgrade, all the downgrades in speed and reliability could push enough people away from trains and into cars (where they're many, many times more likely to be killed in an accident) to more than eliminate the very tiny increase in safety compared to what was already an extremely safe mode of transportation.

 

[Anderson]

Trog: So in other words, it's Napierville all over again?

 

[Trogdor]

My impression with the Naperville deal was that the regulators thought that the rule would encourage railroads to install cab signalling and ATS in order to maintain the higher speeds. They didn't, and trains slowed down.

Here, it's not optional, and installing the safety features will cause the slowdowns.

In the end, you're just spending billions of dollars to install new technology that won't help the operation, and will in the long run make engineers more complacent and less aware of their route, as a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy which represents such a small problem in the first place.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Here's a prime example of computers making things worse!

 

[AlanB]

Here's a prime example of computers making things worse!

Computers didn't make it worse. Computers only do what they're told to do and programmed to do.

It's the people behind the computers and other public/political decisions that made things worse.

 

[George Harris]

Outstanding example of, "Do something, even if it is wrong."

 

[Anderson]

With the mention of fines, considering how much disruption seems likely, I would not be at all surprised if one or more roads end up judging that simply cutting a large fine check is a worthwhile cost-of-doing-business/tax for keeping operations intact until the kinks of PTC can be worked out. If the disruptions would be severe enough, I could see NS or CSX easily eating $1m/day in fines to keep the other $1.5bn in net income intact. I guess the question is the level of the fines.

As to Napierville, all I can say is "what a bunch of morons" considering that they'd been pushing the signals since the 20s, IIRC, and even forced a pilot program onto the railroads which failed to take off in any manner.

And as to the issue of having GPS automatically handle things...rhetorically, I'd ask why even have the engineer onboard? I know, I know...GPS goes down, yadda yadda yadda.

Finally, as to the speeds, is there any 79 MPH track that would "pop" to 90 MPH as a result of this? From what I can tell, there's at least some track that is Class 5 (to allow 60 MPH+ freight operation) but that doesn't have the proper signals for 79+ MPH passenger operation, so PTC would allow trains on those runs to "pop" from 79 to 90.

 

[jis]

Finally, as to the speeds, is there any 79 MPH track that would "pop" to 90 MPH as a result of this? From what I can tell, there's at least some track that is Class 5 (to allow 60 MPH+ freight operation) but that doesn't have the proper signals for 79+ MPH passenger operation, so PTC would allow trains on those runs to "pop" from 79 to 90.

Not without retiming crossing gates. There will always be additional work involved beyond PTC to get to 90mph. Nothing will be for free.

 

[Anderson]

How much would retiming gates cost?

 

[jis]

First the owning railroad has to agree to do it. The matter of cost comes up after that.

 

[Paulus]

Finally, as to the speeds, is there any 79 MPH track that would "pop" to 90 MPH as a result of this? From what I can tell, there's at least some track that is Class 5 (to allow 60 MPH+ freight operation) but that doesn't have the proper signals for 79+ MPH passenger operation, so PTC would allow trains on those runs to "pop" from 79 to 90.

Some of the Surfliner may do so or go up to 110mph (I believe they've already re-signaled for 110mph from Santa Ana to San Juan Capistrano in a fairly pointless waste of money; none of the rolling stock can get up to that speed and even if it could, Irvine means that nobody would get up to speed before having to stop again).

 

[Trogdor]

Naperville, not Napierville.

 

[George Harris]

Finally, as to the speeds, is there any 79 MPH track that would "pop" to 90 MPH as a result of this? From what I can tell, there's at least some track that is Class 5 (to allow 60 MPH+ freight operation) but that doesn't have the proper signals for 79+ MPH passenger operation, so PTC would allow trains on those runs to "pop" from 79 to 90.

Some of the Surfliner may do so or go up to 110mph (I believe they've already re-signaled for 110mph from Santa Ana to San Juan Capistrano in a fairly pointless waste of money; none of the rolling stock can get up to that speed and even if it could, Irvine means that nobody would get up to speed before having to stop again).

having or not having PTC would have nothing to do with being allowed 110 mph if it is alread equipped for 90 mph.

 

[CHamilton]

There goes Positive Train Control

Fred Frailey

Where is the National Transportation Safety Board when we need it? A critical collision has occurred in the railroad industry. It seems that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 has broadsided the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008....
Because Congress caused this collision, Congress should (to continue my metaphor) clean up its own wreck. It should amend either the historic preservation law by saying saving lives trumps saving artifacts. Or if it cannot do that, it should amend the rail safety act by extending the 2015 deadline by an appropriate length of time.
But of course Congress has spent the past six months doing neither of those things. Instead, ranking Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have written the FCC saying, in effect, you fix this, and then went back to their main preoccupations of badmouthing Democrats and Obamacare. Democrats offered no solutions, either, I should add; perhaps they’re too busy demonizing Republicans. Finding solutions to serious problems — even ones it caused — is no longer something Congress seems able to do.

 

[George Harris]

There goes Positive Train Control

Fred Frailey

Where is the National Transportation Safety Board when we need it? A critical collision has occurred in the railroad industry. It seems that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 has broadsided the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008....
Because Congress caused this collision, Congress should (to continue my metaphor) clean up its own wreck. It should amend either the historic preservation law by saying saving lives trumps saving artifacts. Or if it cannot do that, it should amend the rail safety act by extending the 2015 deadline by an appropriate length of time.
But of course Congress has spent the past six months doing neither of those things. Instead, ranking Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have written the FCC saying, in effect, you fix this, and then went back to their main preoccupations of badmouthing Democrats and Obamacare. Democrats offered no solutions, either, I should add; perhaps they’re too busy demonizing Republicans. Finding solutions to serious problems — even ones it caused — is no longer something Congress seems able to do.

When I first saw the line "The National Historic Preservation Act of 1996 has broadsided the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008" I thought it was a joke. If this sort of conglomeration was included in a fictional writing the publisher would want it taken out as being too unbelievable.

 

[Shortline]

PTC is simply much more complex than anyone without a working knowledge of it, can truly understand. This is a LOT more than adding some computers and screens to the locomotives, and some sensors around the tracks. The communications involved, interoperability between cariers, back office server issues, training for maintainers and crews, ability to update in real time consist information en-route, etc etc etc. It's a massive undertaking, and the Class 1's have truly tried to implement, and spent millions and millions of dollars on this. The reality is, the law was created before the technology was even viable, and it's taking a bit of time to catch up and make it work. Initially at least, I do beleive there will be an operational impact-Setting up, maintaiing, and monitoring the system while operating on complex routes will be a nightmare for crews, and there will be delays, and problems as the bugs get worked out. Someday, as the technology catches up, I think it can be automated, but initially there will be quite a bit of human interaction, and will take time.