Thanks for writing. I might set up a positive train control (PTC) megathread/link farm.
Here's some explanatory material to go with this.
You're thinking of Positive train control (PTC).
It was in the news last week, and I posted that news at DU:
Lawmakers agree to extend automated train deadline by 3 years
What happened last week was an extension of a previous deadline.
The private carriers too had been mandated to install PTC on certain sections of track. This installation was to be done at their own expense.
I later posted this insight into who is among those arguing for an extension in implementing PTC:
Buffett's BNSF helped lead fight to delay train safety technology
Interestingly, a BNSF predecessor line had a PTC system in use some time ago. I thought I had posted that at DU, but I can't find it now.
ETA: I went ahead and posted that:
When a railroad almost built a PTC system
Some of the Northeast Corridor has PTC in place now. Scroll down in the Wiki entry on positive train control to this:
Alstom's and PHW's Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System (ACSES) system is installed on parts of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston. ACSES enhances the cab signaling systems provided by PHW Inc. It uses passive transponders to enforce permanent civil speed restrictions. The system is designed to prevent train-to-train collisions (PTS), protection against overspeed and protect work crews with temporary speed restrictions.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Amtrak train 188 derails in Philadelphia; 8 dead
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
....
Train 188 was operating at 106 mph when it entered the curve, and the {National} Transportation Safety Board has, through initial examination of data from the locomotive’s event recorder, determined that the engineer, Brandon Bostian, made an emergency brake application moments before the derailment. The civil (posted) speed on that curve is 50 mph, prompting questions as to why Bostian was operating the train at nearly double the limit. On this particular curve, safe speed is enforced with a purposely designed manipulation of the cab signal system. Amtrak’s version of Positive Train Control, ACSES (Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System), has not yet been installed on Frankford Curve. NTSB officials have said that if ACSES had been in place, it would have prevented the derailment.
IIRC, there is ACSES in place on that section of track for trains headed south, but it is not in place for trains headed north. I need to look that up to be sure.
Anyway, the problem with PTC is that it is an enormously complex engineering project. I know, so were the lunar landing program and the invasion of western Europe. Still, it's a big deal, and you want to get it right the first time.
I do not feel that wanting to make sure you've got PTC right the first time is the same thing as keeping the North American rail system in the 19th century. It's not as if either we have PTC, or we're stuck in the 19th century. The signaling system in place does utilize computer-assisted dispatching for the major carriers, and fiber optics, and a lot of stuff that didn't exist before the end of the 20th century.
Think of this as you would autonomously-driven cars. The alternative to self-driving cars is not horse-drawn carriages. The alternative is the system that is currently in place. It works well, but it does require human intervention, as there is always a human at the controls. PTC is designed to activate in the case of human error. When humans are hitting on all eight cylinders, PTC will remain, unused, in the background.
Another link:
Technology to slow trains – and save lives – is beset by delays, high costs
Posted: Friday, June 13, 2014 4:00 am
By Russell Hubbard / World-Herald staff writer
All across America, one of the nation’s largest telecommunications projects in history is underway, with thousands of new pole-mounted transmitters scheduled for erection in coming months and years. .... The new automated system, dubbed positive train control, is touted by federal regulators as being able to slow or stop trains to avoid dangers long down the track that engineers can’t see.
Mandated by a 2008 federal law, positive train control has been beset by delays, expense and trouble. Originally slated to be partially finished by next year, pending legislation seeks to extend the deadline, and some estimate it won’t get operational until 2020. Costs for the nation’s freight railroads, such as Omaha-based Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF, continue to rise.
Meanwhile, debate continues about whether the safety improvement is worth the cost. ... “It is a big spend that will make a small incremental improvement in safety,” said Lynden Tennison, U.P.’s chief information officer and the man in charge of positive train control at the nation’s largest freight railroad. “We are dedicated, we are committed, we are going ahead, but from a purely financial perspective, PTC makes no sense.”
....
BNSF said its predecessor, Burlington Northern Railroad, led development of a forerunner called the Advanced Railroad Electronics System, the first system to apply GPS technology to a railroad. ARES was capable of remote enforcement of movement based on GPS information. Testing concluded in the late ’80s, said Chris Matthews, BNSF vice president of network control systems.
Here's the early version I was talking about:
When a railroad almost built a PTC system
A quick history of Burlington Northern and 'ARES'
By Forrest Van Schwartz | September 26, 2014
Since the early years of railroading, as soon as railroads started to run more than one train at the same time on the same segment of track, the industry has sought various means and technologies to prevent trains from running into each other. Various “control systems” evolved over the decades; most were good, some not so good.
In the early 1980s, one idea for increasing safety (and savings) came from Richard Bressler, Burlington Northern’s chairman and chief executive. He had a long career in the oil industry and became fascinated with new technology developed by the U.S. military: the global positioning system. He approved a team to look for a project using GPS and the vastly improved computer systems available by the mid-1980s.
That team’s efforts led to a project to replace the signal and communications pole line on a former Great Northern route extending west from the Lake Superior ports of Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wis.
Originally, BN partnered with two other Class I railroads to advance the train-control project, but eventually shouldered the responsibility alone for what became known as the Advanced Railroad Electronics System, or ARES. Information was provided to train crews via radio links to in-cab displays as well as to train dispatchers at the central offices.
....
Veteran locomotive engineers, who knew every inch of their territory, grew to trust and rely on the in-cab displays. Train dispatchers liked the greatly improved voice radio communications and the speed at which switch and signal instructions were sent to field locations.
Same story, picked up over a year later:
U.S.
Rail Industry Had Safety Technology Decades Ago
By RON NIXON NOV. 3, 2015
WASHINGTON — In 1981, while traveling on a corporate jet, Richard M. Bressler, the chairman of the Burlington Northern Railroad, hit on an idea: What if the technology used by airlines to track the location of planes and help prevent accidents was applied to the rail industry?
Mr. Bressler, an engineer by training and a former airline executive, directed a small group of his employees to come up with a similar system for the railroads. The result was a safety system called the Advanced Railroad Electronics System, or ARES, which was soon placed on several trains on a section of track in Minnesota. The system, among other safety features, allowed dispatchers to stop trains automatically if the engineer exceeded speed limits.
But after five years in operation, the project was abruptly shut down in 1993. The company cited the system’s expense and resistance from many managers who did not see how the benefits outweighed the cost of the technology. It calculated that it would have cost about $350 million to install the monitoring hardware and software on the railroad’s entire system, equal to about $580 million today.
....
The ARES system was rudimentary compared with the system the railroad industry is trying to install today, federal regulators say. Also, the older system was tested on only a few hundred miles of track with just a few trains, the regulators said, so it is not known how it would have worked in high-traffic areas like Chicago. Nevertheless, safety experts say the system proved that a technology to stop trains from colliding was feasible.
The article elaborates:
ARES was modeled after an air traffic control system then newly developed by Rockwell International for Boeing 757 and 767 jets.
In an interview, Mr. Bressler, 72, now retired and living in the Seattle area, said he had read about the system in a magazine. After finishing the article, he sent a note to senior managers asking, “Any application to locomotives?”
To oversee the project, the company hired Steve Ditmeyer, a former Federal Railroad Administration official. ... “I was just there a few weeks, and the note from Mr. Bressler landed on my desk,” Mr. Ditmeyer recalled in an interview. Some months later, after seeing a Jan. 22, 1982, advertisement in The Wall Street Journal promoting Rockwell’s “21st-century avionics for the new generation of jetliners,” he contacted the company.
“I just wrote to them out of the blue,” said Mr. Ditmeyer, who is now a transportation consultant in Virginia and an adjunct professor in the Railway Management Certificate Program at Michigan State University. The company agreed to give it a try.
HTH
Full disclosure: I own shares of rail companies, but this ownership is not in conflict with my interest in rail safety. Also, I've attended a meeting at which Steven Ditmeyer delivered an address. I'm looking at his business card right now.
= new reply since forum marked as read
