Ordered up by Congress after a deadly 2008 California commuter train collision with a freight train, PTC will outfit even many remote track areas with satellite-based locator equipment and equip locomotives with override-braking gear to stop a train if its engineer fails to do so.

PTC technology can automatically shut down locomotives to head off a crash or allow distant dispatchers to do it remotely if they run past wayside stop signals.

Congress ordered it for train engines and in track corridors used by passenger lines, and on lines hauling toxic inhalation hazard, or TIH, chemicals that can create poison clouds if released in a train wreck or terrorist attack.

But railroads and regulators alike say the cost is high. Some of the largest carriers are spending up to $200 million apiece this year just to get the process under way, so they can fully deploy it by the end of 2015 as required. Eventual costs will be in the billions to build it out, and billions more to maintain.

For months, rail executives have used every occasion to tell lawmakers, stock analysts and shippers that the law imposes a huge and what they say is largely unwarranted cost on private carriers to develop and install intricate PTC systems. They want the government to help cover it.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood says while he will talk with railroads about their cost concerns, the rail officials in effect should drop their lines of attack and embrace PTC as a major safety advancement.

I cant speak for Congress on whether there is going to be money allocated for this, LaHood told The Journal of Commerce in an interview this month. But what the freight rail folks should be saying is, This is a good idea, this is about safety, this is about one of the most important things that everybody should be concerned about. That is step number one, if you will.

TIH customers fear they will bear much of those costs, however.

Senior railroad executives regularly cite an analysis by the Federal Railroad Administration to argue PTC benefits do not justify its costs, and shippers of TIH cargoes fear the railroads are preparing to sock them with much higher rates to pay for the technology.

The Chlorine Institute, whose members ship one of the best known and widely used TIH chemicals, is so worried about PTC-linked price hikes that it formally asked the FRA to fix its faulty analysis.

That drew a fast rebuke from Edward Hamberger, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads. The Chlorine Institute is attacking the FRAs cost-benefit analysis of PTC as a smoke screen, Hamberger said, to hide the fact that their shipments will raise the cost of rail transportation for all customers.

He said the FRAs cost-benefit examination clearly shows that there are no present business benefits to the railroads, with only $500 million in safety benefits from $10 billion to $13 billion in costs over 20 years.

However, the institute said the FRAs math did not begin to count billions of dollars in productivity gains the railroads will recoup from the improved train tracking and spacing PTC will allow, or factor in lower accident levels on highways when a more efficient rail network draws more freight from trucks.

To arbitrarily exclude vast sums on the benefit side of the cost-benefit analysis is to fatally prejudice the result, institute President Arthur Dungan told the agency. He believes large rate hikes by railroads to offset their PTC investments could push TIH cargoes off rail and onto highways, with a greater danger of accidents and spills.

Although LaHood will be discussing PTC cost issues with rail officials, Were not going to take a back seat to anybody when it comes to safety, he said.

PTC, mandated by Congress, is now in the works. The freight rail folks and railroad people should get on board with the idea that this is a very strong safety consideration that is going to happen. So well continue our discussions and see where it takes us.

(The preceding article was published March 30, 2010, by the Journal of Commerce.)