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FRA to fine railroads missing PTC deadline
This is not how government is supposed to work - create an unworkable deadline and then punish private enterprise for missing it. Washington is simply out of control.
The problem is that they didn’t create an unworkable deadline. The problem is that the FCC didn’t provide the bandwidth in a timerly manner because it spent most of the time dealing with an idiotic Indian rule or concern. What is worse about this whole mess is that the FRA announces it will put the hammer down even when it was incompetency by the government itself that delayed implementation.
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Their is a silver of hope, an amendment was added to the long term transportation bill, DRIVE Act, to extend the deadline for PTC implementation. So some common sense from Congress. Unfortunately, it is added to a bill that isn’t going anywhere time soon.
Who will pay these fines ultimately? Shippers, consumers, passengers. Railroads could take an extreme step and stop operating trains on out of compliance track on 1/1/15–thus avoiding fines. Probably wouldn’t happen, but will be interesting to see how this plays out… I continue to be interested that proven safety improvements (grade separation, etched) are being cut back in favor of largely unproven safety mandates…
The fruits of an over bearing intrusive government.
Hopefully one day the federal government chairmen and congress will get real jobs and understand how the world really works.
This isn’t the Fed Gov’t. leadership. This is the way a bureaucracy, known as a the FRA, and the US Congress operates. It and the US Congress sets the (unfunded) goal and then delays the approvals necessary to allow the various railroads the time to implement their (unfunded) policies.
Whether the railroads refuse to pay on priciple or cooler heads rein in the FRA, I would be surprised if in the end, any penalties are actually paid.
Can’t the President, with the stroke of a pen, make this all go away, or at least postpone it’s total implementation indefinitely ? I think it’s called " Executive Order " !!
Their is precedence of this matter. The government mandates a certain amount of ethanol used in motor fuel. Problem is, the amount required is too much to blend in the amount of motor fuel used. Refiners have to purchase “credits” to avoid penalties for not using enough of a product that isn’t worth using in the first place.
I believe the average Joe has no concept on what freight railroads do for the economy, nor does he have a clue as to why he should care. I would think it to be funny if the class 1’s did shut down on January 1 to avoid fines. Wouldn’t take but a few days to get peoples attention.
Really
Thankfully, Congress will step up to the plate and change the law before the deadline. This they’ll do because Congress is a functional, intelligent, organization that always tries to do the right thing.
The federal government mandated some technology that didn’t exist. Then it set a deadline. Other parts of the federal government put the brakes on the process and didn’t provide necessary support. And now the railroads get blamed and will be fined. That’s the logic used in governmental regulation today. I’d far prefer to see the funds expended on making PTC a reality as fast practicably possible. PTC is a good concept and it’s time to implement it. But let’s do it right, and not in haste.
PTC is trying to make one of the safest modes of transportation safer. That’s fine, but people in the real world make decisions based on factors other than safety, namely, cost. Railroad costs go up, shippers switch to trucks. Trucks and highways are considerably less safe, so more trucks on the roads reduces the safety of roadway transportation more than PTC increases railroad safety. Overall safety record declines all because of a pipe dream of people who think the impossible is possible.
Is a 100% safety record possible? Nobody knows for sure, but the Japanese bullet trains have done pretty well so far. But until we achieve that level of safety, arbitrarily increasing the cost of one of the safest modes of transportation won’t improve safety.
How much is the FRA going to fine the government for all the obstacles put in the railroads way (such as delays in obtaining necessary radio frequencies and permits for installing communications of native American lands)?
The government has forced the railroads to spend at least $4-$5 billion as a result of an accident that killed 21 or so people but a drop in the bucket to the 550+ people who have been killed in road traffic accidents just in the state of Ohio since the beginning of this year. The railroads were pretty safe already. Maybe PTC will bring them within a percentage point of 100% but I’m not holding my breath. If the government really wanted to do something, they’d concentrate on all the darn fools driving without due care and attention as they yap on their cell phones or text.
Washington style extortion. They won’t make America great again with moves like this.
Mr. Klippel, the president doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the railroad industry, passenger and freight, runs or doesn’t run. In fact I think they’d rather it didn’t. The biggest myth being perpetrated by the passenger rail special interest groups is that Mr. Obama wants to do for Amtrak and urban/suburban transit.
Case in point right in your home state. Remember “Amtrak Joe” Biden? Rode between Wilmington and DC when he was a senator from Delaware. Great friend and protector of Amtrak they said. Really. “Amtrak Joe” recently traveled to New York City, most assuredly by plane from DC, to celebrate the bucket of federal $$$ to be spent on the rebuild of the terminals at LGA. Has “Amtrak Joe” uttered one word about the four critical components that could fail at any time on the NY-WAS end of the NEC?
LGA is not under existential threat if the terminal building(s) are left for the time being in their admittedly slummy condition Airlines are not threatening to pull out. But if the B&P Tunnels cave in, or the Susquhanna River Bridge becomes unable to withstand the stresses of high speed trains, or if the Portal Bridge refuses to re-seat/lockup after an opening, and/or one of the 1910 Hudson River tunnels need to be taken out of service, the west end of the NEC stops running for both Amtrak and the tenant commuter authorities. That threat IS existential.
But “Amtrak Joe” (and his boss playing golf in the lap of luxury at Martha’s Vineyard, MA) really don’t care. After 45 years, the NEC is still Amtrak’s only bedrock. And the bedrock of the bedrock is the NY-WAS end of the NEC. But Pres. Obama and “Amtrak Joe” have no $$$ even for the bedrock.
WHERE HAS PAUL HARRISON OF FLORIDA BEEN THE LAST FEW YEARS???
Even flour is a harzard for inhalation troubles and explosions so that means any route with grain shipping can have hazardous material. Here in NH the former Nashua to Keene branch of Pan Am delivers propane to a small terminal so that means they would need PTC or get fined or a track that runs once a week. On Jan 1 the railroads should just shut down all deliveries and let Congress remove their collective heads from that dark storage area they normal place it in.
Typical political jerks who know not how complicated & time consuming it is to complete this system. Any of these people have ANY technical knowledge of what is involved here? Not to mention the FCC foot dragging with the necessary radio frequency allotments, the environmental impact studies for the radio towers, etc. Any surprise why our nation is so screwed up?