Are there any plans for Positive Train Control in Canada? If so, where might one read up on the details?
Nothing that I have heard of.
I haven’t heard anything either. Looks like CN and CP are going to have a marked competitive advantage over the next few years. While their US counterparts have to be completely PTC compliant by Dec. 31, 2015, CN and CP really only need to worry about their US portions. Thus any meltdown due to PTC not working might not be as damaging to CN or CP.
If PTC pessimists are correct and there are serious bugs on Dec. 31, 2015, is there a Plan B? I sure hope so…would also be nice if they share it with employees, customers, and stockholders. I would imagine that shippers may be a tad concerned after reading Fred’s column.
About a year ago I remember CP budgeting some money for PTC development. Obviously, if CN and CP want to continue operations in the US, they will need to implement PTC by the Dec. 2015 deadline.
I searched the CP employee website and found quite a few hits on “PTC”. Since I am probably not allowed to share what I found (I also looked on the public website and found nothing), I will not cut and paste the articles. However, I think it is safe to share some generalizations.
The basic plan for CP is to implement PTC on roughly 90% of it St. Paul, Chicago and North East US mainlines, and the Ottumwa Subdivision is currently being used as the PTC testing ground. I also read that the communication infrastructure on the Ottumwa Subdivision was to be completed by Dec. 2010.
As you can see CP is putting major dollars into PTC.
I wonder. Are all railroads developing their own PTC systems in isolation or are they collaborating with each other?
Oh, I forgot to mention that there is NO mention of implementing PTC in Canada. My opinion is that if they can get it to work in the US at a reasonable cost, it will come to Canada.
Thanks cp trainman, from what I gather from Fred Frailey’s column, each road is more or less working on its own system although one would hope that they compare notes so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel seven time to get this thing operational.
The Class I Railroads PTC implementation plans are available on-line with varying degrees of redaction.
All the Class I railroads through the AAR are coordinating their PTC programs so that even if they chose different suppliers they will have interoperable systems. Also the four largest US railroads (UP, BNSF, CSX and NS) have jointly purchased the necessary radio bandwidth from the FCC. The other three railroads have agreement with these four to use the the bandwidth. Every railroad except BNSF and Amtrak has chosen to use Wabtec equipment. BNSF hasn’t specified a supplier, but they were the pioneers of ETMS. Amtrak already has a PTC system on the NEC, ACSES, which is supplied by Alstom.
Does Amtrak really have a system on the Corridor which complies fully with the new requirements? If so then the whole PTC problem becomes a matter of scaling up the Alstom system to the size of the class I’s physical plant and getting it to exchange information with the Wabtec system. That seems to me to be much a simplier task than what is being reported by Trains or discussed in this thread. I’m having trouble believing that is the case.
BNSF uses Wabtec.
Amtrak has a system in development for the NEC. The Class 1s have a good degree of confidence that they can make their onboard systems read the Amtrak system, but the Amtrak system is not compatible with the Class 1 systems. Thus an Amtrak locomotive running on both the NEC and a Class 1 would require two onboard systems. (If you think that is bad, I’ve seen locomotives in Europe that carry six different onboard systems.)
RWM
I’m no expert, but my understanding is as follows: Amtrak’s “Advanced Civil Speed (?) Enforcement System” is an outgrowth of the old PRR’s cab signal system (details I don’t know), upgraded to become effectively an early PTC system after the ConRail locomotive/ Amtrak Colonial collision at GUNPOW interlocking, Chase, MD, in January 1986 (or 87). It had to also accomodate the signal system on the former New Haven lines from NYC to Boston, and be compatible with the signal systems of the several commuter agencies that shared Amtrak’s tracks as well as some of their own, and which had different ‘legacy’ signal systems - MARC, SEPTA (RDG), NJT (CNJ and DL&W, maybe LV), MetroNorth (NYC and LIRR), ConnDOT, MBTA (B&M), etc. So it was essentially “patched” (no disrespect intended) to add those capabilities to meet that need - but nothing more - and so would be hard to expand beyond that special “one-of-a-kind” case.
Keep in mind that a schematic of the NorthEast Corridor is pretty simple to my mind - essentially from 2 to 6 parallel tracks, though with a lot of interlockings and junctions - maybe a little more at the stations/ terminals, etc. But most of the intersecting tracks at the interlockings are inferior, which should make the logic easier to figure out. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that ZOO Tower in West Philadelphia has been ‘remoted’ yet . . .
See also:
Transforming the Corridor
CETC (Centralized Electrification and Traffic Control)
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