NS Passenger Service No More 1/1/2016?

superheater · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm **Posts:** 2606

"There has to be deadlines- that's why when a Final Rule is published, there is an effective drop dead date for compliance.

Wrong. There are plenty of places where "Final rules" are extended by subsequent rules.

The required "GUST" amendments for pensions were extended multiple times.

https://books.google.com/books?id=l5km3 ... on&f=false

"I deal with this in my own industry that is oversaw by the same agency- the US DOT.

Granted, the effective final date for PTC; December 31, 2015 only gave railroads 7 years to bring their infrastructure into compliance."

It gave them seven years to comply with a rule to comply with rules to create an ill-defined system (the term Positive Train Control didn't appear until the mid 1990's) whose requirements create a need for a massive software development, testing and deployment project.

It's bad enough when our rulers demand that we comply with edicts that are inconvenient, ineffective or inefficient. In this case they demanded the industry adhere to something that was ill-defined as a concept and for which the necessary hardware and software were non-existent.

As a practical matter, this should have been pursued as pilot project in order to assess the functionality, prior to attempting a nationwide deployment.

This reminds me of my days when I worked for an insurance concern with a pension operation. The executives who were invariably unfamiliar with the the underlying technical aspects of pensions, because they were Wall Street types who regarded pensions as mere contrivances to get huge wads of cash to invest, decided that they could have a huge system which would allow any participant or beneficiary to access all the benefits that company was providing the record-keeping or administration for.

It didn't work because defined benefit and defined contribution plans are wildly different in design, data requirements, regulatory compliance, etc. Of course those people were responsible for the money they were spending, so they eventually figured out that the project was unworkable with any project of reasonable scope and scale.

Dave · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:25 pm

Oversaw?

p51 · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:34 pm

As I'm unfamiliar with all the technical specs of PTC, I have to wonder if the mandated timeframe was unrealistic or if the railroads simply decided to call what they thought was a bluff on the part of the railroads. You know if railroads had the power they had back in the day, they would have turned the tables and mandated the government do stuff for them or the railroads simply wouldn’t run anymore until the government blinked first

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:23 pm

As someone who has spoken firsthand to the engineers who have been pulling all the hairs out of their head dealing with both the technical issues (they had to set up a separate holding company to buy a couple billion dollars' worth of radio spectrum licenses and allocate them, for example) and the bureaucratic snafus (the FCC gets some of the blame, I'm told, for the delays), I would suggest the timeframe was unrealistic without a massive subsidy and devoting "Manhattan Project"-like effort to it.

Alan Walker · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 9:36 pm

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

The latest sarcasm I've heard from a technician is "Why don't the Feds just assign the same shmucks who made the ever-crashing Obamacare website to do PTC? They'll get it done by the deadline, and it'll work just as well--except you can't crash a train trying to buy health insurance....."

But they'd insist that all locomotive cabs have wifi installed. So when we go single operator, who will ensure that the one person in the cab is monitoring the train ops and not watching a movie or trying to buy insurance on line?

All joking aside, they really screwed this up. Typical rush to look like they're solving a problem that exists, but not to the degree that they want the public to believe. Could you install technology on all highways to allow cars to drive themselves? Could you do it in several years?

One way for the railroads to bring attention to this would be to simply park all trains on January 1st and let them sit a few days, citing their inability to comply fully with the new law. Congress will act quickly
once they have angry mobs armed with pitchforks and torches at their doors.

daylight4449 · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 9:59 pm

Alan Walker wrote:

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

The latest sarcasm I've heard from a technician is "Why don't the Feds just assign the same shmucks who made the ever-crashing Obamacare website to do PTC? They'll get it done by the deadline, and it'll work just as well--except you can't crash a train trying to buy health insurance....."

But they'd insist that all locomotive cabs have wifi installed. So when we go single operator, who will ensure that the one person in the cab is monitoring the train ops and not watching a movie or trying to buy insurance on line?

All joking aside, they really screwed this up. Typical rush to look like they're solving a problem that exists, but not to the degree that they want the public to believe. Could you install technology on all highways to allow cars to drive themselves? Could you do it in several years?

One way for the railroads to bring attention to this would be to simply park all trains on January 1st and let them sit a few days, citing their inability to comply fully with the new law. Congress will act quickly
once they have angry mobs armed with pitchforks and torches at their doors.

It might start sooner than that, assuming BNSF actually sticks to the schedule for shutdown that they outlined...

RCD · **Posted:** Fri Sep 11, 2015 11:33 pm

I saw a "motion picture" from the 1930-40s era with automatic train controll, hell when the system kicked on it alerted the dispatcher who came on the radio to ask what was going on at which point the engineer that he was demonstrating the system to the motion picture folks on board. And for some reason we can't do this today?

Peter Nicholson · **Posted:** Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:04 am

superheater wrote:

As a practical matter, this should have been pursued as pilot project in order to assess the functionality, prior to attempting a nationwide deployment.

Actually, they did pursue one: the North American Joint Positive Train Control (NAJPTC) project on the UP-owned Chicago to St. Louis high speed rail corridor (ex-SP, exx-CM&W, exxx-ICG, exxxx-GM&O, exxxxx-Alton). It failed.

One of my bosses once observed that if a project was successful, those involved would overflow Soldier Field (where the NFL Chicago Bears play); whereas if it failed, those involved wouldn't fill a phone booth. Those in the NAJPTC phone booth probably hope the whole thing has been forgotten.

NKP1155 · **Joined:** Tue Sep 03, 2013 9:50 am **Posts:** 94

This situation happened with automatic couplers and air brakes. Deadlines were extended for years.

Bartman-TN · **Joined:** Tue Jul 02, 2013 10:45 pm **Posts:** 332

It has been asked why if we had ATS (automatic train stop) in the 1930s, why we can't do it today for PTC.

The issue is that PTC is not at all like ATS. This was one of the things that the railroads had to wait about two years on - what was the definition of PTC. ATS reacted just to signals. If the engineer didn't respond to the signal, the train stopped. However, PTC was declared to be much more.

With the rules that came out, PTC must respond to every single track speed change on the railroad. It must also respond to any speed limitations caused by the loads or cars on the train itself. For example, if the tangent track is 60 mph and a curve is then 50mph, PTC must know this and force the train to slow down. Often adjacent tracks have slightly different speeds, so the system has to be accurate about location and track to work properly. This requires that PTC know exactly where the train is, what track, and every detail about the track and train. It is required that if a track inspector puts out a 10mph slow order just minutes ago that the PTC automatically respond to it and force the speed reduction.

This requires a complex system of data sharing as a locomotive can be on any territory and thus must have 100% communication with the system maintaining the data. This has been a challenge as first there were no radio frequencies assigned to PTC, so railroads had to go out and buy the frequencies from other users. Next, the number of towers required to guarantee 100% contact was huge, and the FCC delayed this process a year or more. Tests that have been undertaken are finding that 100% contact is basically 100% impossible. The loss of communications often results in the train going into emergency, requiring a full inspection of the train, a delay of an hour or so. A solution has been to batch the data to a computer onboard the locomotive, but that requires additional systems to keep track of where the train is on each locomotive.

An additional issue is that there is not one PTC system. Several manufacturers have come out with systems, and making them work together so locomotives can continue to travel freely across the country is an issue. Today, railroads have a problem with dedicated locomotives for ATS and other signal systems. For example, UP has a different signal system in some places west of Chicago, requiring a pool of power to head trains over this line. Imagine the issue of power for different PTC systems, which will be much more widespread than ATS ever was.

The idea of a common system, tested and debugged, is a good one, and one that was suggested. Even the model railroaders did this. However, it was not approved by the government, so we have today's chaotic system of PTC.

dinwitty · **Joined:** Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 pm **Posts:** 2226

this just came across my newswire

Quote:

Norfolk Southern Corporation Three Commercial Place Norfolk, Virginia 23510-2191 September 17, 2015 Dear Valued Norfolk Southern Customer: I appreciate this opportunity to update you on an issue of importance to us both. As you are aware, on October 16, 2008, Congress enacted the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, establishing an unfunded mandate to implement an interoperable Positive Train Control (PTC) system by December 31, 2015. Despite massive efforts and already having spent nearly $1 billion toward meeting this arbitrary deadline, multiple issues outside our control make it impossible for Norfolk Southern, or any other Class I railroad, to meet the deadline. U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. John Thune wrote Norfolk Southern on August 28, 2015, asking us to explain how our railroad and stakeholders will be impacted if Congress does not extend the deadline. Jim Squires, our president and chief executive officer, responded in a letter September 9, 2015. In Jim’s letter, which you may access from our website, we explained that we face the risk of serious financial penalties associated with enforcement of the PTC deadline. In addition, enforcement of the PTC deadline exposes us to the risk of being deemed liable for any accident involving TIH traffic or passengers on NS after December 31, 2015, despite the fact that our railroad would remain every bit as safe after the arbitrary PTC deadline as we were before the deadline. Most relevant to you as an NS customer, we outlined that we might be required to cease shipping TIH commodities and to decline to host passenger trains on our network effective January 1, 2016, as the only complete solution to the risks of non-compliance. Ceasing to haul TIH commodities would be disruptive to our customers and could have negative downstream impacts on supply chains that ripple through the U.S. economy. Of course, we are working diligently with Congress to avoid this potential shutdown of rail services, and we would not take such drastic action lightly. NS remains committed to installing a fully functional and interoperable PTC system on our rail network as quickly as reasonably and safely possible. We deeply regret the impact this unrealistic deadline could have on our customers. We appreciate your interest in the PTC issue and will keep you informed as this situation develops.

Alan Shaw
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Heavenrich · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:07 am **Posts:** 630

A report from the Government Accountability Office indicates that there are some people in the US govt. who understand the issues involved:

"GAO's report recommends, and the U.S. Department of Transportation agrees, "that FRA develop a plan that outlines how the agency will hold railroads accountable for making continued progress toward the full implementation of PTC by, among other things, collecting any additional information needed to track progress of individual railroads."

Association of American Railroads President and Chief Executive Officer Edward R. Hamberger said that GAO report confirms what freight and passenger railroads have been saying for years: Congress needs to extend the deadline for installation of PTC.

"The GAO report reinforces the freight rail industry's contention that PTC is an extremely complex technology that requires more time to install and safely test," Hamberger said. "Freight rail operators have always contended that the Congressionally-mandated 2015 deadline for having PTC fully functional and being used coast to coast by passenger and freight rail alike was not realistic."

Bob H

Peter Nicholson · **Posted:** Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:53 pm

BNSF, which has made more progress than any Class 1 on implementing PTC, is having teething troubles. Here's a clip from the latest BNSF service advisory:

"The technology is complex and some issues, including a high number of unnecessary braking events, have recently occurred. Those braking events, which were on 18% of train trips, have prompted us to conduct additional testing on several subdivisions to ensure that the components are working as intended and the operation remains fluid."

Not where you want to be with 3 months to go.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:35 pm

The threats continue--this time, Chicago's METRA:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/09/22/ ... -deadline/

Official press release: http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/util ... ed--m.html

(Thanks to Bernie Wagenblast's Transportation Communications Newsletter: www.bwcommunications.net )

o anderson · **Posted:** Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:34 pm

Quote:

a high number of unnecessary braking events, have recently occurred

This is part of the end result of PTC, as I have observed from riding the L in Chicago, where PTC was installed systemwide by the time I rode it in the 1980s. Essentially, it promotes the lack of critical thinking in the operator, who instead of focusing on running the train, simply wants to do some job he/she is paid to do, twisting a knob. When the beeping starts, you wait x amount of time before turning it back. Riding with these kinds of operators was like sitting next to the Fryer at McDonalds during a busy dinner hour.

The other kind of operator, which became more and more common, was the one who ran it until the automatic braking kicked in, and the train would come to a crawl before it reset and he/she would wind it up to the post. Count on an extra half hour of jerk stopping in the middle of nowhere, to add to your ride home.

The other factor is that a good operator knows when and where you can "push it." But the safety engineer who programs the PTC would never allow this.

In all of these three scenarios, performance is less than ideal than that by responsible well-trained operators. PTC based on safe reductions of speed will be the demise of scheduled performance, employee morale, and independently thinking locomotive engineers, unless a different model to program the system is used.

It might allow any 6-year old to safely operate your mainline train, though.