…That certainly is something different…and makes good sense if we expect to see some RR passenger units designed and produced in this country for use in a 21th century system.
Railway Man — Just a caveat to what you’re saying. Union Pacific put on a “webinar” a few months ago, and according to them, the requirement only applies to rail lines that handle more than 5 million gross ton miles per year. Doing some basic math (the least objectionable kind, IMHO), that’s four hundred and fifty-five 11,000-ton trains per year, or better than one per day. I don’t know many short lines that handle that kind of tonnage. As a side note, UP estimates 89 percent of its lines will require PTC under the statute. So even some Class I branches and secondaries won’t need it. Best, Andy Cummings Associate Editor TRAINS Magazine Waukesha, Wis.
Andy, while that’s what the law says (read the earlier discussion between myself and Falcon48). it also directs the Secretary to implement rules to meet the intent of the law, and it does not say “PTC will not be installed on <5 MGT lines, ever, finis.” We in Washington are interpreting the intent as saying “Although we [Congress] gave a loophole to short lines, we don’t really expect you to take it, unless they’ve got one heck of a lobbyist.”
Do you really expect a Congressman or Congresswoman to look their constituents in the eye, and say, “Your safety is important to Congress but only when you’re riding on a train on a line with more than 5 MGT of freight per year.” Especially if an accident occurs? And get away with that? Can you imagine the headline in a newspaper, say in Albuquerque, “Safety system for commuter trains not needed here, says federal government.” That would be just ducky. Or in a city after an accident occurred, and someone says, “Hey, how come the PTC system didn’t stop it?” and the commuter agency replies “Oh, we never installed one because the FRA said we didn’t need to.”
My 35 years of experience with the federal government and the FRA is they will always default to the maximum poss
Railway Man — Interesting indeed. Question: What about the eight-mile short line that serves one cannery with a single SW9 that makes five trips a week with six cars at a time to the CSX interchange? I mean, is the industry seriously concerned the feds would take the clearly asinine step of requiring installation of PTC there? Not trying to be argumentative or anything, and I’d hate to underestimate the lunacy that can come from the government process. But, seriously. This sort of thing always reminds me of the Simpsons. There’s a character that show that appears every time a public policy issue is being debated. Her one single line, spoken in a freaked-out tone of voice, is: “Won’t somebody PLEASE think about the CHILDREN??!!” Andy Cummings Associate Editor TRAINS Magazine Waukesha, Wis.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the “new RDC” debate, but this conversation used to happen all the time on the newsgroup misc.transport.rail.americas. This is what I can remember:
The FRA crush rating is 800,000lbs (it may have been bumped up to 1,000,000lbs recently, IIRC). The 800k rating was determined over 80 years ago by taking a PRR P70 steel coach and applying force to the ends until it failed. It failed at 800,000lbs, so that’s what we’re stuck with. The big fear of the day was telescoping (a major problem of the wood car era), and they wanted cars to be able to prevent that.
A high buffer strength certainly helps the car to survive an accident. However, the people inside the car are more likely to be injured in relatively minor accidents because they are bouncing around inside the steel box like ping pong balls. What’s needed are crush zones at the end of each car that help absorb the energy in a collision. Auto manufacturers have learned this lesson which is why modern cars are safer even tho’ they can’t hit a mailbox post without falling apart. Obviously, you can’t make the car out of tissue paper, but a stong central box with crumple zones at either end will be a lot safer than the armored boxes of today’s passenger car fleet.
alcodave,
Sure, someone could retool for making Budd RDC’s. The only trick is that they’d be hideously expensive. Note that few new passenger cars are made from stainless steel these days, and I don’t think anyone’s making the same diesel powerplants anymore. So you’d have to redesign the whole car to different material specs…or spend millions trying to copy 50-year old technology.
zugmann,
Um, no the “Roger Williams” was created with diesel loco-like cabs because it was a “high speed” train set, not for any kind of safety reasons. The Roger was also equipped with 3rd rail shoes and trac
If the SW9 is hauling PIH to the cannery, and the line passes through your typical small Wisconsin town with an elementary school, a church, and a hardware store, like a Revell catalog, all within earshot of the air horn, I doubt you will find a majority in that town considering it asinine. If the public says, “This is the safety level we require,” the public, being a democracy, has the right to demand that. The public could demand all the locomotives be painted purple with pink polka-dots, if it wanted. And then, the public lives with the consequences of their decisions.
The government isn’t the lunacy, the government is the receptacle the lunacy is placed into. Government isn’t Martians imposing their will on us from some other planet, it’s people we elect, lobbyists we hire, petitions we sign. If you want to see lunacy, look at the ballot intiatives concocted by citizens that get onto the state ballots each year simply by obtaining enough signatures at a folding table in front of the Safeways. The Simpsons’ character is a parody of the public.
Speaking of your example, if the PTC ruling is deemed to ex
“PIH” = “Poison Inhalation Hazard”, such as the ammonia & chlorine mentioned further on in RWM’s post.
5-yard post penalty on RWM for undefined use of a non-railroad acronym !
- The AP*
-
- Acronym Police [swg]
From http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Poison+Inhalation+Hazard [emphasis added - PDN]
|
Acronym |
Definition |
|---|---|
|
PIH |
Partners in Health (Boston, MA) |
|
PIH |
Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension (medical) |
|
PIH |
Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital (Whittier, CA) |
|
PIH |
Permanent Income Hypothesis |
|
PIH |
Poison Inhalation Hazard |
|
PIH |
Prolactin Inhibiting Hormone |
|
PIH |
Plug-In Hybrid (vehicle) |
|
PIH |
Pocatello, ID, USA (Airport Code) |
|
P |
Actually, I have another question about that… Do lines with only one train operating on them need PTC too? Or is it required just in case the railroad eventually adds another train? PTC doesn’t add any level of safety for just one train, except at the interchange, possibly.
[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]
“PIH” = “Poison Inhalation Hazard”, such as the ammonia & chlorine mentioned further on in RWM’s post.
5-yard post penalty on RWM for undefined use of a non-railroad acronym !
- The AP*
-
- Acronym Police
- Acronym Police
From http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Poison+Inhalation+Hazard [emphasis added - PDN]
| Acronym | Definition |
|---|---|
| PIH | Partners in Health (Boston, MA) |
| PIH | Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension (medical) |
| PIH | Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital (Whittier, CA) |
| PIH | Permanent Income Hypothesis |
| PIH | Poison Inhalation Hazard |
| PIH | Prolactin Inhibiting Hormone |
| PIH | Plug-In Hybrid (vehicle) |
| PIH | Pocatello, ID, USA (Airport Code) |
| PIH | Provi |
The train can also collide with the track machine, hi-rail, or the signal maintainer or track inspector. PTC adds safety for even a one-train-at-a-time railroad, because it also enforces for overspeed and open switches, both of which are single-train events. Both are required under RSA08 as well as train-to-train collision protection.
Graniteville, SC, the 2005 derailment that killed nine railroad employees and people living and working adjacent to the track, was an open-switch, single-train event that resulted in breaching of a chlorine tank car.
RWM
[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]
5-yard post penalty on RWM for undefined use of a non-railroad acronym !
- The AP*
-
- Acronym Police
- Acronym Police
From http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Poison+Inhalation+Hazard [emphasis added - PDN]
| Acronym | Definition |
|---|---|
| PIH | Partners in Health (Boston, MA) |
| PIH | Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension (medical) |
| PIH | Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital (Whittier, CA) |
| PIH | Permanent Income Hypothesis |
| PIH | Poison Inhalation Hazard |
| PIH | Prolactin Inhibiting Hormone |
| PIH | Plug-In Hybrid (vehicle) |
| PIH | Pocatello, ID, USA (Airport Code) |
| PIH | Provinciale Industriële Hogeschool |
| PIH | Pan American Institute of Highways |
| PIH | Pin in Hole (circuit card assembly process) |
RWM -
OK, but note that it’s not “stand” - it’s “5 posts”.
But I can’t decide if it would be more painful to you (or us) if you had to hold back and suppress your next 5 posts - kind of like a “time-out” sitting in the penalty box for an infraction during an ice hockey game - or if you have to write 5 more posts - kind of like Bart Simpson having to write “I will not [insert favorite one here]” 100 times on the blackboard after school . . . [swg]
- Paul North.
[I’m a little punchy from checking the details of survey property descriptions this afternoon . . . ]
Railway Man — Of course, I agree with you 100 percent on members of the public being the reason for the restrictions that occur. It’s very much a double-edged sword. At times it influences public policy positively, at others negatively. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the STB and their interaction with the public. The fact that the board approved both the DM&E coal project and the CN-EJ&E merger in the face of stiff public opposition is sort of a reverse of the paradigm you describe. Is that unique to the STB? How is it that they stand firm in the face of public opposition? And aren’t there examples of lobbyists successfully countering this phenomenon across a wide variety of industries? Part of the problem here is that one can never completely eliminate risk. GCOR 1.1.1 states that one should always take the safest course. I always felt I was in violation of that rule every time I took a call. By leaving the house, I risk getting hit by a drunk driver. By climbing on a locomotive and staying on board as it goes into motion, I risk a truck driver with a load of gasoline stalling on a crossing ahead of me and getting fried. Same logic goes with everyday life, for that matter. If you stay in bed forever, you’ll starve to death. But if you get up and go to the store, you risk getting run down while crossing the road. Risk will always be there. I guess public policy, in cases like these, is about deciding what’s acceptable risk and what’s not. If the public always errs on the side of too little risk, how will business even get done in the future? Best, Andy Cummings Associate Editor TRAINS Magazine Waukesha, Wis.
Dear Acronym Police:
You are over-ruled on the context of a discussion of railroads.
Case dismissed.
RMW, you are free to post.
While all exposure and risk cannot be eliminated, reasonable measures such as PTC can be applied. The allowance of wiggle room around 5 million AGT keeps the door open for appeal for special and mitigating circumstances.
Nobody, other than suicides, ever planned on being in a collision; yet they happen all too frequently on freight as well as passenger lines and people die.
For reasons of ethics I can’t comment on any recent STB decisions.
If you step back, and look at how the machinery of the STB and public policy works, the outcomes are rarely a surprise. The STB is charged (by the ICC Termination Act) with maintaining and advancing the economic health of the national rail s
If PTC is installed for passenger service on a line with more than 5 million annual gross freight tons, what’s the difference (train control-wise) whether passenger trains are limited to 79 mph or are allowed up to 150 mph? In my opinion, the cost should be shared and pro-rated on a factored per car formula.
Not quite sure I understand the question, so might I reframe it? I think what you’re asking is this:
“Is it technically feasible to implement a PTC system that meets FRA regulations for a 79 mph railroad and also obtain 150 mph operation without significant cost increases?”
Answer is, I haven’t a clue because there’s no implementation rules yet. Intuition says, “No, it’s a biiiig number.”
In my opinion, speaking from experience and a lot of hallway discussions in the last few months with the engineering, operating, government affairs, NRPC officers, and marketing people, and with the corridor operators and commuter operators, a 150-mph high-speed passenger railroad and a freight railroad are only marginally economically feasible on the same main track at present, using U.S. axle loading, loading gauge, trailing tonnage, pricing, car supply, market economics for freight transportation, and car maintenance standards. It’s barely feasible to mix passenger and freight on the NEC right now, and that’s only with the benefit of a lot of grandfathered exceptions to all sorts of rules and regulations, and that’s with a pretty limited, most temporally separated, freight presence. I don’t know anyone who is proposing to mix the two except in some extremely restricted, temporally separated instances, and everyone else is dubious they know what they’re in for.
And then … there’s the liability issue. How much will it cost to insure for the claim for a 150-mph trainset using lightweight non-FRA compliant car construction full of 350 high-paid, high-remainder-of-life-earnings businessmen
Nowhere did I advocate non-compliant fast or high-speed passenger equipment. The reality is that, just as in France and elsewhere, parts of high speed routes will be on existing lines with mixed traffic. They have done well with sophisticated signaling that enforces driver compliance. PTC would be even better; but I’m not holding my breath on any relaxation of structural requirements.
As for liability, I acknowledge there is a slight risk of a derailment on a parallel track. This unwelcome cost even on freight-only lines can be minimized with good inspection and maintenance, and defect detection equipment. The advantage is a cost savings from flexibility in operation and better utilization of infrastructure - from tracks to grade separation.
I fully agree that crush zones and side impact protection need to be incorporated in future passenger equipment; otherwise passengers will continue to be exposed to death or serious injury by being thrown violently in a steel box. By the way, the Talgo baggage van end unit was needed initially for coupling to a separate locomotive; and this practice persists for trains on secondary routes in Spain as well as the Pacific Northwest. The crush zone it affords is a bonus.
150 mph operation is a possibility for lines that do not require significant curve reduction and do not have the market base to support more aggressive improvements and electrification for 200 mph service on a fully segregated HSR route segment. Many existing routes with a low market base may not support full grade separation and be limited to 110 mph. Other routes only may be practical with tilt suspension just to achieve 80 mph, let alone 110 mph with curve restrictions. These all expand public support through the reach and relevance of rail passenger services.
Harvey, I wanted to acknowledge that I read this since you took the time to write it, but f