Eastern Railroad Discussion > A Conversation On PTC Performance.. A Few Thoughts

As PTC becomes more and more the norm for Class 1 daily operations so does the opportunities for performance issues within the locomotives leading freight trains across the country. At this point it is hard to say what causes more issues?? Trip Optimizer or PTC??   Running without Trip Optimizer depending on who you ask may be the preferred choice.   Running without PTC, again depending on who you ask might result in a totally different answer?.

When a trains locomotive has issues with PTC that can't be resolved the crew is told they can run without it today. OK....What I never hear are the initials...like “PPM” of the PTC Support Desk party authorizing those instructions. I will assume within the computer systems and shown on all screens is that fact..and perhaps the Date/Time/Initials of the party that authorized it?? Dispatchers provide Time & Initials for TA's, stop & flag , slow orders etc anytime there is a required change to the norm. Being old school.. as a CYA.. I would want to know that information.
After all I am required to give the PTC folks my RackF ID. 

Now on the subject of equipment failure within the locomotive related to PTC. When a shop ticket is entered and the crew told to place a “BAD ORDER report ticket on the PTC circuit breakers... as was the case this morning for BNSF #8760, what railroad is responsible to correcting the issue? The railroad that currently has the unit on their system of the owning railroad? I am thinking whoever is using it. Probably don't fix it and just make sure it is not a leading unit and return to sender ASAP. 

In advance thanks for any thoughts and known facts on the topic.

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

If the DS tells a crew to run without PTC, he SHOULD give his initials, but there may be a sneaky reason for glossing over it.......nevertheless.....you are on the single main PTC is not cooperating and you are holding up traffic.....whatcha gonna do? All said, TO failures are much more common and it's no skin off anyone's back if it doesn't work today. Fill out an online form as to your description of the problem, and go on to bed. PTC has it's own hardware, and is quite a bit more robust than TO which resides in the Factory GE computers, and is dependent on three or four different communication protocols to be online and talking....not an easy thing to do on an old locomotive with loose everything shaking about. The new party trick is for PTC to be able to talk to TO....IF it will work....you set PTC up first and once active you push a button to connect it to TO....a button will appear on TO screen to set up in PTC mode...and cross your fingers.....PTC will give running data to TO instead of TO downloading from the backend servers in Timbuktu. All in all if you have use all this stuff....this is the way to do it.....and yes, it's driving us down the path to unemployment. 

I can't speak to the performance side of things, but on the shop side of it... there's no reason why a foreign road shop couldn't change out some of the PTC-related components, especially such as antennas, breakers, cable repairs, power supplies, etc.  However, there are software and hardware licensing issues and component tracking requirements that will make the replacement of CPU cards, screens, etc much more difficult.  Many PTC-related data fields have been added to UMLER which permit additional tracking, but I'm not sure if that's sufficient to satisfy the regulatory requirements for "change management".  I would imagine though that there will be (if not already) PTC parts pooling agreements and other arrangements that would permit foreign roads to do more significant maintenance of each other's PTC components.
 

On the Topic Of TO (Trip Optimizer) Recently on another NS district I heard radio communication between a train crew and the Atlanta Road Foremen Desk.The question was asked as to why they were not running with TO? Since they had a foreign road lead unit was their response. The response was along the lines that a change had been issued recently and that all foreign road units were to be run with TO. They were told to check their bulletins and be mindful of the fact that the required setup for CSX units was different and to be sure to review those instructions. 

After making a few attempts to activate TO to no avail the crew contacted PTC Desk. Since they were at the 3 quarter point of their trip activating TO was not possible. They would need to wait until they were closer to the next NS terminal.I am assuming that they should have activated TO within a certain distance from the originating terminal?? 

Can one with experience speck to this subject? 

In advance thanks for any thoughts and facts related.

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/19 07:07 by NSSpike.

TO needs to be setup with-in 15 miles of initial terminal in order to work, Otherwise it just kicks you out with an error message.  In regards to foreign units, everyone's TO is compatible with each others EXCEPT for UP who runs a slightly more involved version that will also control the air. I don't know other railroads units will work on UP, but if you are on NS/CSX/CP/CN a UP unit will not work. In regards to PTC, interoperability is a system requirement but the carriers aren't quite there yet. Various railroads have instructions on whose power is compatible and whose isn't, there is progress in this field though as it seems that every few weeks more and more railroads work. 

The bottom line is PTC normally works, TO sometimes, LEADER energy management, rarely.  The biggest problem IMO is that the speed profiles are different for each system.  And are full of mistakes that have been reported and rarely fixed, 

It's just a PIA.

Eng.Shadetree

Back to TO....it has to do with how each railroad ADDRESSES each train....by it's symbol or by lead motor.....CSX addresses trains by symbol, so when you log into TO you supply your train symbol....on roads where train are addressed by lead motor...there is no need to "log in" to TO....TO alread knows what unit it is so it pings the backend servers with that infor and downloads the profile for the trip.. But when that kind of unit is in the lead on CSX it will not work, because when it pings the CSX server, we have no way to answer it, because all profiles are stored by train symbol! AS to the fifteen mile rule....that used to be the rule on CSX but it has been extended to be nearly infinite distance....so long as a profile for the next crew has not superseded your profile you can set up TO at any point where you can get it cranked up.