Eastern Railroad Discussion > CSX PTC Compliance on NEC trackage

CSX runs a number of local freights in the Boston area over Amtrak's Northeast Div., which operates under American Civil Speed Enforcement System (ACSES) rules, along with operating some locals between Poughkeepsie, NY and Schenectady, NY on the Hudson Sub., and may operate a train or two over Amtrak's Springfield Line.  Is CSX installing ACSES in its locomotives, or will it follow NS' patch of paying Amtrak to install I-ETMS - the Wabco PTC that most of the freight railroads are using on their own lines?
Andy

ACSES has been in service on the NEC in New England for several years.  At the time it was installed, both CSX and P&W equipped a certain number of their locomotives with ACSES.  I am not aware of plans to overlay I-ETMS in that area, but I am not really current so if someone knows differently please say so.  As for the River Line, I don't know, but inasmuch as CSX already requires a captive fleet with pilot modifications necessary for operation in 3rd rail territory I assume that it would be much cheaper to simply add ACSES to those locomotives.

Gordon

ACSES will hypothetically be installed on any CSX locomotives that will lead on the NEC and on Keolis territory. The NS I-ETMS overlay agreement was a very contentious agreement that CSX will not be emulating. I only hope the acses installs can keep up with implementation since ACSES will be active in the near future on a few lines that are pretty heavily used by CSX. I have not seen an CSX AH loco with working or even installed but inactive ACSES but these are going to be needed soon unless major changes are made on power assigned to manifest and intermodal traffic going east of Selkirk, NY.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/19 18:55 by mttrainman1.

mttrainman1 Wrote:
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> I have not seen an
> CSX AH loco with working or even installed but
> inactive ACSES but these are going to be needed
> soon unless major changes are made on power
> assigned to manifest and intermodal traffic going
> east of Selkirk, NY.

Not sure why you say this as east on the B&A all intermodal traffic goes only as far as Worchester and autos up to Ayer, none of which is ACSES territory.  Manifest would have to be dealt with, but with Beacon Park closed I'm not sure how it is handled and the volume is not great.  The bulk of traffic, both intermodal and manifest, east of Selkirk is going down the Hudson Line which likewise is not ACSES territory.  The small amount of traffic going down the Hudson Line will need ACSES-equipped locomotives but as I said above, there is already a dedicated fleet of 3rd-rail qualified power which could have ACSES installed. 

Gordon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/19 16:19 by gbmott.

I was informed by an Amtrak PTC executive that CSX has already dual-equipped their locos that operate in ACSES territory, and will continue to do so as ACSES is further extended. They operate over a larger footprint of ACSES territory than NS does.  NS has paid Amtrak to install I-ETMS over the smaller portions of the NEC over which they operate.  They do not wish to dual-equip any of their fleet and have to keep them captive.