I agree. So why did the AAR endorse the deadline in 2008? Since they certanily would have known there was no US off-the-shelf system available, why didn’t they push for a later deadline at that point? Or adapt the proven European system which is becoming the world standard? Or Japanese?
because the AAR is a mouthpiece and was parroting the belief that it was a 10 minute home repair - seriously underestimating the size of the undertaking for the RAILROAD INDUSTRY, not just a individual carrier that could probably kluge together something that would operate on their property alone (like Amtrak has done with the NEC - with the NEC being electric their locomotives won’t be operating on the rest of the railroads and thus don’t have to have interoperatability).
Excerpt from the Reuters article
In a July 24 letter provided to Reuters by BNSF, railroad president and chief executive Carl Ice informed Elliott that BNSF is analyzing the possibility of a service shutdown and actively consulting with customers.
Excerpt from Carl Ice’s letter to Daniel Elliott
Dear Chairman Elliott:
I write in response to your letter of July 13, 2015, requesting our assessment of fall peak expectations and our ability to meet expected demand, as well as specific questions surrounding network performance…
Ongoing PTC installation and testing also potentially decreases velocity as track windows are required for this work as well. As you know, BNSF will not be able to meet the year‐end deadline for PTC installation. While legislation to extend the deadline is under active consideration in Congress, it remains unclear at the moment what the consequences of
Further on my post above:
“Courts of equity will not act when there is adequate remedy at law.”
Courts generally prefer to order someone to not do something; they are extremely reluctant to order someone to actually do something, because of the difficulty of monitoring, supervising and enforcing the performance of said acts.
(Thank goodness Mrs. Palsgraf vs. Long Island RR is not involved in any of this [inside joke, goes to the “forseeability” of the chain of results of and hence damages from the wrongful act] ).
- Paul North.
[from the AAR website]: “AAR is the world’s leading railroad policy, research and technology organization focusing on the safety and productivity of rail carriers.”
The AAR also owns the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. which manages/operates the FRA’s facility in Pueblo. Doesn’t sound like a just another DC mouthpiece, i/e., lobbyist. http://www.aar.com/
So I guess from your perspective, they are just liars (or trolls).
In reading articles, it seems to me that the prospect of shutdown is being offered by the industry as a threat to the government to disrupt public service and thereby put pressure on the government to extend the deadline. In this context, the shutdown is seen as an option of the industry.
But there is no such option of behalf of the industry. A shutdown is mandated as a part of the PTC mandate. Therefore, the shutdown and disruption of public service has to happen, and the resulting pressure on the government will be solely the result of the government, as opposed to a chosen tactic of the industry. The industry has no choice in the matter.
The ball is in the government’s court, and they have two options. Either they extend the deadline or they take over the operation of the railroads.
I am not aware of anything in the mandate tht would impose fines for most traffic, only on lines running passenger trains and hazardous materials. If there were a embargo on that traffic for a few days, it would not be cataclysmic.
I think some of you that are posting here that a shutdown will not happen should look at the amount of the daily fines for non-compliance that the government will levy FOR EACH INCIDENT OF VIOLATION. It’s well above pocket change.
Since almost all Amtrak operations outside of the NEC lose money, there would be no monetary damages to Amtrak. Long shot, but maybe passengers could claim damages but only if no other transportation means was available. The TIH volume is small enough to pay to make it go away as they tried to get rid of it before.
They SERIOUSLY UNDERESTIMATED the size and complexity of the undertaking.
I posted that before. Each vioation per day is $10-30K, fairly costly. But that seems to only apply to running hazardous cargo and passenger trains. If an extension has not been passed by Congress by Jan. 1 (I believe it will), embargo them (running Amtrak passenger trains cost the freight lines money), run everything else and wait a few days for Congress to act. It’s really a lot of hysteria.
An extension to Dec. 31, 2018 should suffice. Ten years is a long time since the mandate was passed in 2008. It took less time to send men to the moon, build an atom bomb, etc.
Neither of which was privately funded.
We have the best government money can buy. The date will be pushed back.
So what? PTC is not rocket science or nuclear physics. Why did the US rails elect to go with an entirely new design? Why didn’t they buy the products from Siemens (ECTS-Trainguard) or Hitachi (ATACS)?
Given the ways of US bureacracy, neither probably met the requirements for some reason or another.
Could be but I don’t recall the mandate gave any specs. More likely other reasons within the rail’s bureaucracy. Purchasing managers tend to seek business from folks they have a history with.
They’ve been doing it with ECP braking, too. Those chickens are just starting to roost.
Because those aren’t off-the-shelf ready for US freight railroading, either.
The AAR doesn’t own TTCI. They are just leasing it. Uncle Sam still owns it.
Fred Frailey has a great blog on this topic. It does confirm that, aside from the issue of whether railroads have a common carrier obligation, BNSF will shut down rather than violate the law.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2015/09/09/bnsf-we-will-be-paralyzed.aspx