Western Railroad Discussion > PTC?

Waste of money? Government overreach? Or an invaluable part of modern railroading?

Posted from iPhone

Yup

SD45X Wrote: > ...  Yup ...

(LMAO) If a word was worth a thousand words..... (hee hee hee hee hee)

Personally, I don't think you'll get much of a discussion going until all the football games are over with...

Lance/199

A government project. Minimal safety benefits, little or no economic benefits.

Eng.Shadetree

Posted from Android

The-late-EMD Wrote:
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> Waste of money? Government overreach? Or an
> invaluable part of modern railroading?

Invaluable to who? You can bet the carriers will find it invaluable when PTC v2.0 is used to eliminate the second crewman, and PTC v3.0 eliminates the last one with full automation. 

The-late-EMD Wrote:
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> Waste of money? Government overreach? Or an
> invaluable part of modern railroading?
>
> Posted from iPhone

Just another of the countless manifestations of society's ongoing delusion that if only we had the right regulations in place, all risk could be eliminated from life.

Posted from Android

      Which is why we no longer go to the moon or farther, not all risk can be eliminated. Just set down and do nothing.

The railroads were in favor because they realized they could blame the cost on eliminating another crew member.  aka the conductor

Pinlifter Wrote:
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> The railroads were in favor because they realized
> they could blame the cost on eliminating another
> crew member.  aka the conductor

Facile and trite.  The railroads were not in faovr of it becuase it was going to cost them a lot of money with no return. The
last number I heard was 15 BILLION and that was a couple of years ago.  And it isn't a fail safe system either.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

ntharalson Wrote:
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> Pinlifter Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The railroads were in favor because they
> realized
> > they could blame the cost on eliminating
> another
> > crew member.  aka the conductor
>
> Facile and trite.  The railroads were not in
> faovr of it becuase it was going to cost them a
> lot of money with no return. The
> last number I heard was 15 BILLION and that was
> a couple of years ago.  And it isn't a fail safe
> system either.  


Remember that what is now called PTC was an FRA idea, not Congress, and that it is further development of an automation system that BN spent unit trains of money on and couldn't get it to work. By the time that BN jettisoned it, it was no longer a cost-effective means of crew reduction. It is even less so now. Once the cash is burned, they'll probably try to justify it with conductor elimination, but I don't think the industry went down this path in order to eliminate one person per train (and what they are developing is light years from justifying eliminating both people from the crew).

TAW

To play my broken record again. ATC/CCS/ATS. PTC is the billion dollar solution looking for a million dollar problem. FRA and NTSB won’t be happy until robots replace TE&Y. That and the idea that you take a kid working the Fry-o-lator at BK one week and a class one hires him/her and gives them a few weeks of class and voila! Instant conductor.

Posted from iPhone

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------


> Remember that what is now called PTC was an FRA
> idea, not Congress, and that it is further
> development of an automation system that BN spent
> unit trains of money on and couldn't get it to
> work. By the time that BN jettisoned it, it was no
> longer a cost-effective means of crew reduction.
> It is even less so now. Once the cash is burned,
> they'll probably try to justify it with conductor
> elimination, but I don't think the industry went
> down this path in order to eliminate one person
> per train (and what they are developing is light
> years from justifying eliminating both people from
> the crew).
>
> TAW

Didn't Congress mandate the FRA come up with something after the Chatsworth, CA, commuter accident?  
I seem to recall that Senator Barbara Boxer of CA lead the hue and cry to provide something to prevent 
such accidents.  And I well remember BN's efforts in this area.  Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids was heavily
involved in that effort.  TAW has previously posted about this.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Yes, absolutely tons of political hay was being made over Chatsworth. Remember with politicans whenever “something” happens the war cry must be “We have got to do something about ______ so ________ never happens again!!!!!!!” A judicious amount of media must be present and the appropriate amount of stressed faces must be seen. Also the politicians must be presented as absolute experts in whatever the crisis du jour is be it space exploration or potato chip manufacturing or railroad operations.

Posted from iPhone

ntharalson Wrote:
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>
> Didn't Congress mandate the FRA come up with
> something after the Chatsworth, CA, commuter
> accident?  

Yes. They mandated implementation of a (not specified) system to prevent trains from speeding and running into each other.

There were existing systems that could have been employed, but FRA mandated what was effectively continued development of the BN ARES system (that was jettisoned after unit trains of cash were sucked into a black hole and it still didn't work). Thus, they mandated what did not exist, applied to the effectively arbitrary deadline that Congress specified (which wouldn't have been unreasonable for implementation of existing technology).

TAW