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Senators hold hearing on railroad safety
There is no “free lunch”, and everything has a cost. When PTC was initially proposed and passed, I forsaw “unforseen” consequences, including cutbacks in service, and the delay in other safety-related issues. It is actually possible that the PTC project is costing more in injuries, deaths, and property damage since railroads are cutting back on other safety initiatives that are proven to work (i.e., grade crossing safety work).
I see a lot of parallels with the medical system in the US, which is being required to adopt new (and unproven) technologies, ostensibly to lower cost and improve safety/care coordination/etc. So far, the technology has been so cumbersome to meet Federal requirements that it will probably not meet most of the goals in the near or medium term future…
The PTC requirement is also probably going to result in loss of rail service in some areas, and will definitely delay the start of, for example, new passenger service (and significantly raise the cost to initiate service). I doubt that shifting goods and passengers towards the roads in those circumstances will improve safety overall…
This was a wide ranging hearing that went thru at least 3 widely separate accidents. In the news they asked questions on 1. The MetroNorth derailment. 2. The CSX grade accident near Baltimore 3. A track worker fatality. 4. PTC Their is no interconnection between these incidents other then they happened on a railroad. The CSX was not even the railroads fault.
People who never operated a railroad or a freight train mandating safety standards because they are pseudo-intellectual experts. Come to think of it, these government types never ran anything in the private sector. Yet, somehow they are more qualified regarding railroad safety than a track maintenance worker who has to be safe if he plans on going home today?
Nobody is able to meet the PTC deadline because these same clueless government officials decided on a deadline based on wishful thinking. Nobody bothered to check with the people who actually have to build, test, rework, retest, and make it work in the real world under real conditions. A univeristy professor’s undergrad student’s computer model is not the same as the real world. Trouble is, government doesn’t live in the real world, but in the government world, where everything is perfect, even if it isn’t, because the pseudo-intellectual says it is perfect.
A tour shuttle between United States Botanic Garden and National Arboretum. Amtrak’s Northest Corridor near National Arboretum.
Correction:
a tour shuttle between US Botanic Garden and US National
Arboretum. Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor can be viewed
at National Arboretum.
Instead of forcing the railroads to spend billions due to one accident caused by one moron talking on the phone instead of watching the signals as required, the Congress would derive a lot more benefit by imposing PMC (Positive Moron Control) to manage all the people yakking on their cell phones or texting instead of paying full attention to their driving. I bet a lot more lives would be saved!
Fine example of self praise by each of the groups without any iota of progress. Just kick the can down the road - imitating what Congress has done so well for decades. And the 18 month investigations that only yield some esoteric fact that has nothing to do with common sense in preventing accidents. For example, in 12 months when the report on the Texas tragedy is released the cause will be that a relay for the gates was 1/2 second too slow in activating causing the gates to lower too late for the trucker to stop. Instead of the more accurate the trucker failed to exercise due care at a crossing. Short, sweet and correct. But with millions in liability settlements on the line, NTSB has to set up the deep pockets instead of a poor small truck line.
The biggest issue nationwide? Inadequate grade crossings! At least the standard should be double gates blocking both lanes on each side and making it impossible to drive around the gates when down.
For once, everyone isn’t jumping all over Mr Guise. And yet, he’s saying basically the same thing: Government shouldn’t be doing all these things. If the increase in costs especially to passenger railroads means reductions in services, that inevitably puts more people in cars where they face a higher risk of death from auto crashes. PTC is a great concept, but like people in these comments are pointing out, it has to work in the real world in a way that actually improves safety overall, not just for the railroads. More and more, it appears that this is not the case. I hope someone with some political clout reads these comments and takes it to the political arena before it’s too late.
These windbags have no clue about railroads or any other industry they stick their noses in. The article is entirely too sanguine about this kind of grandstanding. They just passed the RSIA in 2008 and it’s just the latest in an myriad of laws passed since 1887. Let’s be honest, politicians don’t make anything safer.
These windbags have no clue about railroads or any other industry they stick their noses in. The article is entirely too sanguine about this kind of grandstanding. They just passed the RSIA in 2008 and it’s just the latest in an myriad of laws passed since 1887. Let’s be honest, politicians don’t make anything safer.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., would PTC have prevented the Metro-North commuter train derailment occurred in May?
Using data from the past X years of railroad accidents, we should ask if PTC would have prevented these to get a clearer understanding of the benefits.