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Wabtec receives Sound Transit PTC contract
And congrats to Sound Transit. One question- how do BNSF freights interface with the commuter trains? Surely there has to be more than just preventing commuter trains from colliding with each other.
Maybe this will show BNSF that PTC can and should be implemented without crying that the technology isn’t advanced enough or that they can’t afford installation.
Now that Class One carriers are more profitable, they certainly can do what needs to be done without continually requesting the FRA to delay putting this into full use.
Design, install, test and commission a positive train control system? I think it is safe to assume PTC is not even remotely close to being ready for mainline Class 1 railroads. There would be no need to do any of the above steps if it was. Some railfans, like the government pseudo-intellectuals and academics unable to hold real jobs in the real world, seem to think legislating something into existence on an unproven timeline will make it so.
With more freights on the Tacoma-Everett lines and with the eastside lines gone, I think it is time to think about a freight bypass. Between Centralia and Olympia you could cut off to Tacoma Rail to Kapowsin, then put back ex NP roadbed to the Stampede Pass line, then North on Milwaukee roadbed to Monroe and back to Everett on BNSF Stevens Pass. The track between Tacoma and Everett for Positive Train control is exploding in traffic, is getting more controversial, and gets land slides in the winter. Since our governor is putting the breaks on port development freight trains need to go to BC and BC needs to put a cutoff in at White Rock. To completely bypass these areas, the ex NP Snohomish to Sumas line could be put back with Rail Links Southern RR of BC to Roberts Bank terminal. Then the coal, the oil, the lumber, and intermodal could flow.
George Westinghouse has to be smiling down on Wilmerding over this. Congrats to Wabtec, my homies.
Paul:
Lets face it there is a poster on this site who consider himself an expert on everything related (and unrelated) to railroads. And if you don’t believe it just ask them
@JEFFERY GUSE - I guess it’s our imagination there are plenty of PTC systems out there in the wild then, including one a few feet away from me on the Florida East Coast Railway’s tracks.
I’m not even sure why you think that sequence of words, common to any bit of engineering, makes you think PTC isn’t ready for use.
There are certainly problems with the roll-out, largely related to the FCC, but arguing it, as a technology, isn’t suitable for use by Class 1 railroads is utterly absurd.