PTC...Is it really needed?

Mike:

I suspect you would be hard pressed to find any railroader or shipper who truly believes PTC is really necessary.  The billions the railroad industry will spend on PTC would be much better spent on upgrading physical plant and increasing capacity. 

Now, the railroads and their shareholders will not have to absorb the cost of PTC as it will eventually be passed along to shippers in the form of higher freight rates.  And shippers will pass the higher freight costs along to their customers till ultimately it is the consumer who will bear the cost of PTC.

At the risk of making a political comment on a train forum, Congress is real good about becoming righteously indignant about something and spending a ton of someone else's money to correct a problem that doesn't really exist.

Curt

I agree.  But, I think railroads would have come to better systems on their own.  Some components of what PTC does would most likely have happened naturally.

Yes someday but not in the time frame Congress has set.  The technology needs to evolve first and it's being rushed now.

 The way railroads rush new Engineer's into service now-a days ,yes .

 

 I think looking back 22 years ago I wish I had more training,not just 6 months.But I think also a big difference was in the people who trained my generation of railroaders.

 

 The "Old Head" Engineer or conductor are not as present today as what there were 20+ years ago .At least not on my territory.

 

 PTC technology I'm sure,or at least  hope will improve itself to a point where it is more fail proof than some of the technologies we are introducing now.

 

 I just believe the railroads are banking on something not yet proven to be as reliable as the well trained railroader.

My hope is that the PTC does not become like the FAA flight control upgrade

I am worried the whole system will come to a screeching halt.  There are ways to protect switches in dark territory on busy lines (prob the weakest link in the whole system.)  They could do CTC islands around the switch areas or some type of radio signal that alerts when a switch is left open.  But now with the dispatcher log of switch position...the problem is pretty much under control.

 

Or trains stop...hasn't that existed for years?  Or just an overspeed alerter that uses train position and timetable speed...in combination with GPS.

 

Why doesn't congress go after people standing in tracks tacking pics and filming movies???  

One day a set of cars got away from a yard in NE Houston.  Because that cut did not have any PTC equipment on board, PTC would not have detected it.

 

Much of PTC uses radio signals.  That can be jammed, or somebody could transmit false information into the system.

 

Therefore, it is not fool proof!

Cant CTC detect stuff like runaway cars.

Yes, in the sense the system can activate signals and the DS's control panel/screens.

 The  signal system already brings trains to halts when they reboot or do maintenance.I've sat for an hour before while they tried to get the system back up and running,I don't see why the PTC would be any different.

 

 I've been told that the dispatcher will be able to override the PTC if he/she see's something not just right,if they catch it in time though.

 Currently on my territory GPS can be watched in Atlanta and I believe the Chief Dispatchers office.Also Mechanical Operations Office in Atlanta can run a diagnostics test on the locomotive when en-route.

I don't know anything about modern railroads. I know a little about air traffic.

 

Aviation, and particularly general aviation (like the railroads) has been on a steady decline.  We are at exactly one half, as compared to 1977, at my very busy airport, and a sizeable number of those operations are now very big business, as in corporate jets.

 

Rumors are that the controlling government authority is about five times larger than it was in 1977, and fact is that we will all be forced to install two-way identification equipment in 2020, at a rumored cost of four grand and up for each aircraft (except Piper Cubs, thank God).

 

Isn't this sort of what we want?  A totally controlled, lockdown society?  The railroad stuff is just one small manifestation of the desire for total security and total safety.  We make these choices.

There is a lesser known benefit railroads might experience when PTC is implemented – 1 man crews, hence a smaller workforce. I did not believe it initially when a BNSF retiree brought up this topic during a tour of the BNSF yard in Galesburg, IL this June. He compared it to reduction in labor force required to operate a train, similar to when the caboose was eliminated.

Then less than 2 months later, I read the news where BNSF proposed to eliminate the conductor position on trains running in PTC territory. Though this initial proposal was defeated by the affected labor union this time, I can speculate the railroads bringing this topic again once the PTC has been fully operational in a few years.

Rio Tinto iron ore trains in Western Australia have started operating heavy ore trains with no operator on board. So PTC might be another technological advancement toward fully automated train operations in the US just like the model trains that we love so much.

These are just my opinion.

 

http://www.star-telegram.com/2...sf-proposal-for.html

 

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

 Big difference from running on the plains in Australia with sparse population and running thru densely populated towns in the U.S. and parts of Canada.

 

 PTC is a good thing,but I personally think it's one of those ideas ahead of it's time,and feasibility.

 In a world with the threat of terrorist and extremist abroad,I believe that a human on board,and two specifically,are a much better deterrent than a one person or none at the controls.

 

 Sure this does all sound great to the pencil pusher at the desk of one of the carriers,but it still is about the safety of the greater population that should be considered.

 

 Besides,who will wave from the window when a train goes by