Western Railroad Discussion > Cost of PTC per locomotive?

How much does PTC installation in a single locomotive cost? In a locomotive consist, say three units, does the lead locomotive have to be PTC equipped; if the lead unit doesn't have PTC, will it still function properly if the second or third unit is so equipped? What about in the case of push-pull passenger trains, will every cab car and cabbage car have to be equipped with PTC? If installation of PTC is pretty costly, I can see a large amount of units in the locomotive fleets become designated as "B" units.....cannot lead.

PTC has to be on the lead controlling unit of a consist for it to be used. Having PTC installed on a trailing unit does no good at that point. The locomotive would have to be switched to the point if they needed it for PTC. Others will have to answer the other questions.

Cab Cars and Cabbages need to have PTC installed.

Yes, the system will work on the trailing unit, it'll see an immediate collision! System has to have clear vision forward
to corrrectly operate.

Out

I’ve heard it’s about 25000.

Posted from iPhone

Original line was that it wasn't going to exceed $35K, think the $25K (parts and labor) should cover it.

Out

A recent trains online post Indicated that Bennett Levin will not be installing PTC in his E units due to the cost. He estimated 100K per unit, which he said he couldn't justify for a few trips each year. This is going to be very detrimental to excursions in this country unless the FRA removes the restriction.

Dave

Shortlines are reporting around 28k per unit, plus a subscription fee..

callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, the system will work on the trailing unit,
> it'll see an immediate collision! System has to
> have clear vision forward
> to corrrectly operate.
>
> Out

That might be completely true, but if the second locomotive was set up for "lead" and the lead locomotive was set up as trail, and the consist was run from the second locomotive, I don't think PTC would notice, since it's based off of signal systems and not the location of other equipment in the area. At the very least, it wouldn't see an immediate collision since it can't see immediate collisions, generally.

Now, if you went by a proceed signal very slowly and it dropped to red before the trailing locomotive went by it, then it would respond to the sudden red block.

I can only imagine the older the electronics mounted on the piece of equipment are the more expensive it would be to install. The manufacturers design this gear to be as close to "plug and play" as they can for a majority of equipment. When you start getting into electro-pneumatic relays and such on ancient diesels I can't imagine there would be much interoperability with the equipment designed to be thrown on, say, an SD70M, thus the price starts climbing for every minute somebody is pouring over the schematic for something like an SD9 with original electricals, or every second the technician is tracing wires under the cab floor.

Pump

Does anyone know if there is a significant difference between the cost of the various PTC systems?

When CCT thought we would have to install PTC to operate for 2 miles on the BNSF or over to the UP Stockton yard I made sure the two new BVrookville Gensets had room in the nose and in the cab for the PTC equipment but the cost looked to be estimated at about $55,000 per unit and then on the 2101 the Brookville 3 engine in a GP38 body around $60,000 due to modifications needed to put the Antenna package on the unit. CCT opted not to to ruin on the BNSF or over to the UP yard to save the cost of installations and let BNSF or UP move the Power for the CCT. By the rule BNSF could establish an absolute block to let the power move from the port to the Lodi line but I am not sure they would do it. The SW1500 locomotives were going to require even more to add PTC and it would have had to have some modifications in and out of the cab and room in the cab would have been limited.