The months-long wait for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to issue a final implementation rule on positive train control (PTC) ended for U.S. railroads on Jan. 12, Progressive Railroading magazine reports.
Now, the 30 roads affected by the federal PTC mandate including the Class Is, Amtrak and 22 commuter railroads have a few months to pore over the rule and ensure their implementation plans comply before they submit them to the FRA by the April 16 deadline.
The final rule governs PTC implementation on major U.S. freight-rail lines, as well as commuter and intercity passenger-rail routes. PTC systems, which feature digital radio links, global positioning systems and wayside computer control systems, are designed to help dispatchers and train crews safely manage train movements.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 mandates that interoperable PTC systems be installed on most passenger-rail routes and lines used to move certain hazardous materials by 2015's end. Closed passenger-rail systems, such as light-rail, rapid transit and subway systems, will not be required to adopt PTC.
The final rule builds on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that the FRA issued in July 2009. The rule specifies PTC systems' required functionalities, including interoperability; the means by which the systems will be certified; the contents of implementation plans required by the statute; and the process for submitting implementation plans to the FRA for review and approval.
For example, the rule stipulates that railroads must provide separate onboard screens for the engineer and conductor so each crew member in the locomotive cab can receive the same PTC information displayed in the same manner.
"The FRA pushed aside railroad arguments against requiring a separate PTC screen display for each crew member in a cab," said United Transportation Union officials in a news item posted on the union's Web site on Jan. 13.
The result of more than a decade of work by the FRA and various stakeholders, in partnership with the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, the final rule serves as the "end of the beginning of the process" for PTC, FRA officials said during a media teleconference held Jan. 12.
The FRA estimates it will collectively cost the railroads about $5.5 billion to install PTC on 69,000 miles of track, including onboard components for 30,000 rail vehicles. In addition, railroads will spend about $820 million annually to maintain and refurbish the systems.
The high price tag will force railroads to forego major capital expenditures in critical areas over the five-plus-year period, said Norfolk Southern Corp. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Wick Moorman during an earnings conference held Jan. 27.
"And the result may well be less capacity than is required to handle traffic volumes, a diminished ability to provide good service, and even possibly a less-safe working environment than we might have had otherwise," he said.
As of press time, railroads continued to review the final rule and declined to comment until they had more time to examine the 475-page document. Ditto for the Association of American Railroads (AAR).
"We plan to issue a detailed response to the rule at a later time," AAR officials said in a prepared statement issued on Jan. 14.
One part of the final rule they're apt to review is various exceptions granted to Class II and III railroads. For example, the rule enables regionals and short lines to operate non-PTC-controlled locomotives for up to four origin-destination movements daily and for trip distances up to 20 miles on PTC-equipped lines.
Until Dec. 31, 2020, those locomotives also will be permitted on PTC-equipped lines for more than 20 miles; afterwards, regionals and short lines must install PTC devices on locomotives to operate them more than 20 miles on PTC-equipped lines.
In August 2009, the AAR objected to the FRA's proposal to allow Class IIs and IIIs to operate non-PTC-controlled locomotives on PTC-equipped lines. The association disputed the FRA's claim that the financial burden on small railroads would outweigh safety benefits.
"Surely Congress did not require Class Is to spend billions of dollars on PTC systems only to allow Class II and III railroads to operate trains without the technology on our tracks equipped with PTC," AAR officials said at the time.
The FRA will accept additional comments on a few specific provisions of the final rule until March 12 to determine "whether clarity can be improved, and whether further opportunities for cost savings, consistent with safety, are available," according to the agency.
The AAR plans to "continue to participate in the rulemaking process," association officials said in the Jan. 14 statement.
(This item appeared Feb. 17, 2010, in Progressive Railroading magazine.)
NEW YORK -- It's the great train robbery -- and the feds are the stickup artists, according to the New York Post.
Federal and congressional officials are demanding that the cash-strapped MTA drop $700 million on a safety program for Metro-North and LIRR that the agency insists it doesn't need, according to sources and memos.
The feds want a system installed that allows a computer to reduce a train's speed in a number of situations. The MTA trains are already equipped with a similar system, but it kicks in only when one is in danger of crashing into another.
The money would come from the MTA's 2010 capital program, the budget that funds mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway and currently has a $10 billion funding gap.
"It's a lot of money," said Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. "And my belief is that the MTA's railroads are substantially safer than many of the similar ones in the rest of the nation."
Metro-North hasn't seen a passenger die from a train crash in its 27-year history. The LIRR hasn't had a fatality since the 1950s. Still, Congress mandated in October 2008 that all commuter railroads in the country install what's known as positive train control after 25 people died in a California crash.
But that California railroad -- like most others in the nation -- was using far less sophisticated equipment than the MTA's, sources and documents say. Now LIRR and Metro-North -- the country's first- and second-largest systems -- have until the end of 2015 to install the safety measures.
In-house MTA lobbyists have already asked the Federal Railroad Administration for an exemption.
The new system would have "marginal benefit" and "introduced significant cost and risk to a rail system which currently has a high degree of safety," MTA Deputy Executive Director Chris Boylan wrote to the feds this month.
But Metro-North and LIRR's current systems "do not have the same capabilities of a fully integrated positive train control system," said Warren Flatau, an FRA spokesman.
(The preceding article by Tom Namako was published March 1, 2010, by the New York Post.)
