Passenger Trains > Report the FRA will issue rule "allowing" high speed trains . .

From today's Politico Morning Transportation newsletter:

TRUMP ENCOURAGES HIGH-SPEED RAIL: The Federal Railroad Administration will issue a rule allowing high-speed trains to operate on existing railroad infrastructure. The rule will be listed among a number of expected executive regulatory actions in an updated unified agenda that OMB will release today, according to POLITICO's Andrew Restuccia. In addition to encouraging the use of high-speed trains, the FRA rule would also allow railroads to more flexibility on train designs and permit them to incorporate "more modern, proven, and safe approaches to passenger train crashworthiness."

So many questions:
- who will supposedly operate any such trains? where? who will pay?
-what does this mean or not mean for PTC?
-this comes during his "Buy America" week - assuming anyone at the White House or FRA has thought about it, does this mean that foreign designs that do not meet US crashworthiness standards would be approved? What about imports of equipment?
- how does this fit with GOP and White House approaches re Amtrak?

He'll probably change his mind next week.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

As long as the trains are Yuuuuge, and covered with fake gold foil, they will be approved.

Changing crash worthiness standards by executive order?

Wasn't that type of legal bypass exactly what the party spent six years complaining about?

march_hare Wrote:
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> As long as the trains are Yuuuuge, and covered
> with fake gold foil, they will be approved.

Just pictured Jimmy Fallon doing this in a skit!

Posted from iPhone

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Changing crash worthiness standards by executive
> order?
>
> Wasn't that type of legal bypass exactly what the
> party spent six years complaining about?


This is not an executive order, this is simply a finalizing of the proposed rule changes released at the end of the Obama administration. This has been in the works for a while.

bretton88 Wrote:
>
> This is not an executive order, this is simply a
> finalizing of the proposed rule changes released
> at the end of the Obama administration. This has
> been in the works for a while.

That's correct. The proposed rule text was published in the Federal Register for public comment last year.

MW4man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bretton88 Wrote:
> >
> > This is not an executive order, this is simply
> a
> > finalizing of the proposed rule changes
> released
> > at the end of the Obama administration. This
> has
> > been in the works for a while.
>
> That's correct. The proposed rule text was
> published in the Federal Register for public
> comment last year.


So, does this mean the Nippon Sharyo Chicago cars might be cleared for use in the US? My understanding is they failed the compression test on crash worthy testing.

If YES, that could be huge for Illinois.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, does this mean the Nippon Sharyo Chicago cars
> might be cleared for use in the US? My
> understanding is they failed the compression test
> on crash worthy testing.
>
> If YES, that could be huge for Illinois.

Isn't Nippon Sharyo already winding down operations in Illinois? It might be too late for that.