Eastern Railroad Discussion > EM Testing?? PTC Related??

Late this morning while out Bremen Georgia way I heard the dispatcher tell  NS 27A (ANGUILLA JCT, GA (GITM) - VANCE ALA) as it departed Austell west bound on the Alabama East End  it drew the lucky honor of being the "Test" train on their trip today. The crew needed to tone up 150 for details. Eventually a group that identified thenselves as "EM Testing" made several efforts to contact the crew. I had to bail and never heard anymore conversation.

Anyone have info on what this is about? Guessing testing PTC?

Thanks
NSSpike
 

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

In my field, "EM testing" (Electromagnetic testing) has to do with radio signal levels and the presence/absence of interference or spurious signals in the bands of interest, so I suppose it could have had something to do with PTC testing.

Ray 

My guess would be that EM stands for Energy Management. I've heard that there are energy management "features" incorporated into PTC, but that they have been disabled so far. It sounds to me like it is similar to the LEADER stuff that was prevalent before PTC started being installed.

This is another example of NS' obsession with bloated technology. Like they really need to have yet another help desk to fill the NS airwaves. Let's see how many different things I can think of to tone on the radio: dispatcher, chief dispatcher, OSS, regular MOC, MOC to log a defect, wayside detector help desk, regular PTC, PTC for premium trains, and now Energy Management. NS has all this technology stuff, yet they can't do the basic things effectively like issue the appropriate bulletins for signal cutovers or changes in methods of operation.