http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=38700


"Among the penalty options are as much as $15,000 to $25,000 per day, per locomotive for not equipping engines with PTC."

Sounds like another tax on the consumer to me

The article says we, the taxpayers, are already on the hook for about 2.4 billion.

The real problem is the arbitrary dead lines set by the government.

Fixed that for you.

2.4 billion?

System is expected to cost between 6 to 22 BILLION dollars.



IMO I think this is a good system.  Trains currently run in the dark and they can run several trains on one line without actually knowing each others whereabouts.  Also addresses over-speed and other restrictions.

Park all noncompliant locomotives Jan 1 and tell FRA to piss up a rope.  It won't take long for folks to get hungry.  People have no idea how much freight is moved via train.

How many passenger trains, especially in the Northeast USA, would be shut down?  Imagine that impact.

Trains running in signaled territory already know the status of the track in advance of them because of the signals that are being displayed. Also, the dispatcher knows where trains are because his/her board will indicate it. PTC is just supposed to take the human error factor out of it.

This. And all of our road engines are equipped with GPS and if they really want to the can find exactly where the train is.

I must be the only one in the thread who sees this for what it actually is: Posturing by the FRA intended to help the railroad industry by pressuring congress to extend the implementation deadline of PTC out to 2020. I would bet that it eventually gets extended even further out, too. I knew right from the moment that the legislation was passed back in 2008 that there was no way that the entire industry would be able to go from basically zero to developing and installing a fully functional, inter-operable PTC system in just 7 years. It is far more of an immense undertaking than most people understand.

The technology is not ready, plain and simple. Having seen the effort that the BNSF has been putting into PTC, I am comfortable saying that if we can't do it, no one can. BNSF is a leader with the technology by having been working on their own Electronic Train Management System for over 10 years now, well before Positive Train Control was a thought in most legislators minds. While we still have a long ways to go, we have been pouring billions and billions of dollars into it, creating the hardware, developing the programming, installing upgraded signal systems and PTC equipment, refitting locomotives with PTC equipment, etc. We have essentially built all of the hardware from scratch and are now working on the programming to get it all to work together in an upscaled system. And we are still having MASSIVE problems with the operability, functionality and reliability of our PTC systems. But I am sure that we will get it sorted out some day, and then Berkshire Hathaway, our corporate overlords, will probably make a bazillion bucks licensing it out to other railroads.

Using their own spectrum and network, which makes this a boondoggle right off the bat.

Yeah, the deadlines will most likely be extended. There's no possible way the class one's are going to get this installed and up and running anytime in the near future.

The systems have to be able to talk to one another. There are places where different railroads cross, connect or both.

Not to mention the times when locomotives run on foreign railroads.  An example being the BNSF and UP locomotives I see daily here in northeast PA.  Interoperability is a key requirement of the system and the government failed to early-on lay out a uniform national radio frequency plan for the system, which has lead to many of the delays.

It was only a few months ago when the final radio frequency assignments were announced so designs could be finalized.  And now in just over six months equipment has to be ordered, manufactured and installed on tens of thousands of locomotives and at ground sites?

There was a problem with the native American Indians also. They caused a big delay with getting antenna foundations and masts set. Something about sacred ground and pumping the spirit world full of the white man's bad energy. I suspect it had more to do with $$$$