Quote without comment: re Norfolk Southern

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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October 8, 2008

Railroad Industry Leaders Agree on Establishing Positive Train Control Interoperability Standards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

OMAHA, Neb., FORT WORTH, Texas, and NORFOLK, Va., October 8, 2008 - Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP ), Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE: BNI ) and Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC ) today announced that they have reached an agreement on establishing interoperability standards for Positive Train Control ( PTC ), a critical component to safely implementing PTC technology across all rail systems.

PTC is a predictive collision avoidance technology that can stop a train before an accident occurs. PTC is designed to keep a train within authorized limits on a track and under its maximum speed limit. To accomplish this, sophisticated technology and braking algorithms will automatically bring PTC -equipped passenger and heavy freight trains to a safe stop. This will help prevent train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments and casualties or injuries to the public and railway workers.

“Our joint development of interoperable standards for a PTC system with NS and BNSF is a significant hurdle that we have overcome and brings us much closer to a safe technology solution. Interoperability is one of our key challenges since freight and passenger trains share tracks and must be able to exchange and use information in order for PTC to function appropriately,” said Dennis Duffy, Union Pacific executive vice president-Operations. “We look forward to working with elected officials and regulators on another key challenge - the need for additional radio spectrum - so that we have sufficient communication, especially in metro areas such as Los Angeles and Chicago .”

“The development and testing of positive train control systems has made great progress in the past decade,” said Carl

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What about CSX, CN and CP??? Any word on what they’re going to do?

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Not in this press release; I cut and copied the whole thing.

But I doubt this one press release was meant to include the entire American rail industry or all of NS’ “partners” in one agreement or another. NS has very little track west of the Missouri River, which is where BNSF and UP are prominent. It’s a natural liaison for that reason, but again I doubt this one press release tells the whole partnership story and really wasn’t meant to.

BTW if you go to nscorp dot com then nsinvest you can receive NS’ major press releases via e-mail. I don’t own their stock any more but still get the e-mails!

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You can bet that the others will jump on soon, but possibly without the publicity. Amtrak uses all six major railroads, so that will be important. I’m glad to see it, and they’re right–this is significant.

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Heaven help us until they get the bugs worked out. And there WILL be bugs.

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Z-Keep in mind that until any bugs are worked out, PTC is going to overlay existing train control systems. If, because of some bug, PTC doesn’t recognize the need to stop, the engineer still is there to take the needed action.

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OK. This morning’s news says that CSX has “officially” joined in with UP, BNSF, and NS in agreeing to interoperability. And one of UP’s tests will involve international operations with CP. So now we just need to hear from CN (and KCS).

UP and BNSF also plan to have the system up and running by 2012 (instead of the Federally-required 2015) in the southen California area.

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I would expect Soo Line Corp, Grand Trunk Corp, and Kamsas City Southern, to sign on fairly quickly. The two Canadian Carriers in Canada will probably have to discuss things with the Canadian Government first (Transport Canada).