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NTSB On PTC: More Time?
THE RAILROAD INDUSTRY has told the Na- tional Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that it is not possible to meet the congres- sionally mandated December 31, 2015, deadline to implement an accident preven- tion Positive Train Control (PTC) system throughout the bulk of America’s rail net- work. In a statement issued at a day-long agency forum, Association of American Rail- roads (AAR) President President Edward Hamberger assured the regulators that the industry was making every effort to reach the goal required by the 2008 law, but that the 2015 timetable was “impossible.” As of the end of 2012, according to Wash- ington voice of the freight railroads, the com- panies had spent more than $2.7 billion in their ongoing effort at implementation. That included partially equipping 6072 of the 18,100 locomotives requiring the devices; in- stalling 8504 wayside interface units with 37,512 locations yet to acquire them; and in- stalling 2775 wayside and locomotive radios out of 56,035 needed. And then this, added by Hamberger:
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“Freight railroads are determined to safely implement PTC, and have been putting vast resources and energy behind efforts to do so. But the fact is, it’s simply not possible to in- stall a reliable, fully interoperable PTC sys- tem everywhere it is required by 2015 dead- line. There may be segments of track across the country that will be PTC operable by the 2015, but completely implementing PTC on the more than 60,000 route miles required by the mandate cannot be done by 2015.”
NTSB Disappointed
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman was not pleased.“More time,” she stated. “The act gave the railroads seven years to implement the law . . . More time: The NTSB recom- mended an advanced control system, a PTC predecessor, in 1970 . . . More time: [In] 1990, the NTSB put positive train control on our first Most Wanted list of transportation safe- ty improvements . . . More time: [T]he 2008 deadly UP-Metrolink collision near Chats- worth, Calif., that killed 25 people and in- jured about 100 wasn’t the first accident to ignite a debate about mandating PTC . . . The Metrolink engineer [failed to respond properly to a red signal]. And why? Human error. And why? He was texting.” Hamberger reminded the panel that, “This is one of the most significant techno- logical undertakings in transportation his- tory.
Safely implementing interoperable PTC cannot be rushed… we must get it right to ensure rail continues to be the safest way to move both people and goods.” The AAR CEO added that his member corporations were continuing the process of mapping more than 475,000 critical features of the rail system into a computerized track database and much remains to be complet- ed. He added the railroads will have to con- duct specialized training for approximately three quarters of all employees in the work force once the technology is deployed in their service territory.
Other interests represented at the all-day hearing included passenger railroads (Am- trak and APTA commuter), rail labor, the FRA, business groups, environmental or- ganizations — any entity with any interest of any kind on the issue of rail safety. Metrolink, whose operator was texting sec- onds before the Chatsworth crash, was rep- resented at the hearing. The commuter line’s PTC expert Darrell Maxey gave a de- tailed account as to the steps his Southern California agency was taking to bolster its safety procedures. In her closing remarks at adjournment, Chairman Hersman com- mented on “progress” made by Metrolink “with support from BNSF and UP.”
So Who’s at Fault? Hersman’s comments about Chatsworth call to mind the line of thinking in some freight rail quarters as to the freight industry’s role in safety. Though it was not raised at the hearing, some in the Class I community be- lieve the following: Crews operating on the private freight railroads are required to un- dertake intensive safety instruction before going out on the road. But (according to un- spoken implication) many accidents could be avoided were it not for some operators with whom the freight carriers share trackage. Both freight and passenger interests ap- pear to deem it in their best interests not to “stir the pot” any more than necessary on this issue, especially given the dicey clash a couple of years ago that threatened the frag- ile relationship between freight and passen- ger interests. That was when FRA/DOT was seriously considering the idea of writing into airtight law or regulation a stipulation that priority on track usage be accorded to pas- senger traffic, even when on freight rail property. Most of that discussion was held in (sometimes high-decibel) meetings behind closed doors, and very little has been heard of it since then. As of now, however, the One Rail Coalition features on its website a lengthy laundry list of a membership that includes every rail-rel- evant player in that effort – freight, passen- ger as well as suppliers and issue-focused interest groups. On paper, the coalition is in- tact, but well short of singing Kumbaya. That, however, is the history of successful coalitions. They consist of members who do not necessarily like each other very much.
Baby Steps
Recently in this space, we discussed the sub- dued speculation in industry circles that perhaps it would be fitting to consider a switch from diesel to natural gas fuel, now that it has been established that this coun- try is sitting on at least 100 years’ worth of natural gas that is cheap and readily avail- able thanks to fracking, a process that was cost-prohibitive, until recently.
Now comes word from North Dakota where the same basic technology is applied in boomtown proportions to shale oil. Ongo- ing discussions there have involved North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple and offi-
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