who is going to cough up the maintenance dollars. There are shared agreements between Railroads now. But when it comes to Maintenance,there are cost sharing agreements between those Rails. This proposal opens all rails to anyone,not a workable situation. If you apply a tariff to the outside Railroad,your shipping costs stay the same. Coal trains just by the nature of their weight,require more track maintenance.

As I understand it, the Class I railroads have independently developed at least 2 different PTC systems...and they aren't sharing with each other. I don't know how adding another company's trains into the mix will affect this.

Its more than just a train on a track now - there's a 'system' that relies on the train being equipped with the right coms, etc.

Another thing is car maintenance. The big railroads spend big money keeping their steel wheels...round. What happens if they're forced to allow 'flat spot RR' on their rails?

tested Satiate Remote Control of Trains. Never heard the results,few months later,they wanted the Trainmen to accept one man crews. Glad that did not happen.

Maintenance of line is the key to any Rail operation. Appears Norfolk Southern is looking like the poster child for lack there of.

I'm at home, with a slow connection. I'm bookmarking this post.

I'm no expert on PTC.

It is important to note that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is not a regulatory agency.

In the wake of its many investigations, it issues calls for regulations. Those calls are directed at the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, and so forth. They are regulatory agencies. Sometimes they take heed of the NTSB's calls; sometimes not.

Just because the NTSB wants something done is no guarantee that anything will happen.

Yeah, but this is the Surface Transportation Board (STB), which is something else entirely.

Never mind.

ETA, Wednesday morning: let me look up the STB:

...so I'm reluctant to write too much about it, not knowing what is considered 'public knowledge' and what isn't. But I'll try to elaborate a little about what is new with PTC, vs older systems.

First - the desire to stop a 'runaway train' anywhere on the system. This train may be having a mechanical problem, or it may have a terrorist on board trying to derail it in a populated area. This is the one people are most familiar with...and in order to be able to do it 'anywhere', there has to be line of sight radio tower coverage from end to end of the track.

However, a much more likely problem is an inattentive engineer, who allows a train to approach a curve too fast. There have been a few of these types of derailments in recent years. So, PTC is constantly monitoring the train's speed and location...and if it perceives a train is going too fast, it will slow it down. And this has turned out to be a technical challenge. The geometry of a curve may merit 30 mph on paper - but engineers may have regularly approached this curve, without incident, at 35 mph for years. So it gets into the nebulous zone of whether or not automated systems are programmed to 'break the rules'. The railroads see this as potentially slowing down their traffic system wide, and they certainly want to push the rules to the limit.

Another aspect is regulatory 'punishment'. In order for a system like PTC to work, any change in the track has to be documented, and put into the computer system. An example would be if a crossing is upgraded from just stop signs, to stop signs with gates - the railroads would be expected to update the model within a short time frame. And, in order to make sure the system is constantly updated, the railroads will be subject to penalties if they don't - which resemble the penalty box in a hockey game. The penalty may be a reduction in speed in a certain railroad subdivision, from 40 mph to 35 mph, for a week. And, this would be enforced through PTC.

Those are the 'meat' of the regulatory requirements. And, of course, the railroads will also utilize the system as a track control system, and even gather real time engine performance data...and really any data they can collect to improve fuel economy and service interval. And, in order to meet the requirement to update the model, the railroads are developing creative and sophisticated ways to 'scan' their right of way often, and automatically update the model...and are creating a living model of their system, which will eventually help them determine where to do track maintenance, etc.

This is all very expensive...and this is where the company I work for is on both sides of the fence. The Class I's are investing millions (and we work for them)...and the short lines are lobbying and going to court, to find ways to piggyback off of their efforts (and we work for them too).

and as 'trackage rights' was a big part of the conditions we/ICC imposed on rail mergers, I'm 'back in the saliva!'
Will study this, and be back later. THANKS, mahat!