Coal Age

NOV 2015

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Seven years ago, a tragic train crash in southern California riveted the nation. As far as the nation was concerned, this crash was the last straw. Congress quickly responded by passing a bill that would remove the responsibility of train braking from the hands of man and place it firmly in the "hands" of an automatic control sys- tem. Little did they know, they were demanding a system with the technical equivalence of a NASA rocket launch from an industry unschooled in developing auto- matic control systems, and they were giving the railroads seven years and no money to make it happen. Now, we are on the glide slope of that adventure; the railroads are saying they have spent billions and still won't make the December 31 deadline. After a seven-year period of deaths and injuries due to train crashes, the 2008 Metrolink accident in Chatsworth, California, was the event that propelled Congress to pass a mandate for Positive Train Control (PTC). In addition to the increasing calls for implementation of the technology over the last 40 years, momen- tum had been building following a string of deadly incidents. A total of 15 freight and 10 passenger accidents over the sev- en-year period between 2001 and 2008 resulted in more than 34 deaths and 600 injuries. All of the accidents were said to be "PTC preventable." Congress mandat- ed that railroads implement PTC systems by December 31, though they did not ask if this giant leap into rail system control technology was possible. They certainly did not ask the railroads if they were up to inventing and building gigantic interop- erable (capable of working on any rail- road system) control systems capable of remotely stopping any train in danger of running into another train. According to a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) status report in August, a majority of railroads will not meet this statutory deadline. Their PTC implementation timeline for eight major railroads shows that they do not expect to complete the system in all respects until 2020. The derived progress chart may not explain why certain railroads appear to have done nearly nothing in seven years, 20 www.coalage.com November 2015 t r a n s p o r t t i p s Status of Positive Train Control Implementation B Y D A V E G A M B R E L PTC Implementation Timeline, August 2015 (Railroads: Alaska, BNSF, CN, CP, CSXT, KCS, NS, UP) Source: Federal Railroad Administration

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