Passenger Trains > Money obtained for PTC Dodge City KS to Las Animas CO

=18ptFrom a Amtrak News Release Dec 20

Bennet Announces $9 Million for Safety Improvements Along Southwest Chief Rail Line=12pt =12ptWashington, D.C.=12pt – Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today announced $9.16 million in federal funding to install Positive Train Control (PTC) along the Southwest Chief rail line between Dodge City, Kansas, and Las Animas, Colorado. The funding was awarded through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Grant Program. The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) applied for the grant with the Kansas Department of Transportation, local governments in Colorado and Kansas, and Amtrak. =12pt 

1 piece of the puzzle.

What a colossal waste of money. The good news is that it may keep the SW Chief running. The bad news - besides the waste of money- is this reinforces the notion that this system is necessary to operate passenger trains. It makes it more difficult to maintain other routes without PTC and even more hard to add service to a new route- as unlikely as that seems at this moment.

Posted from Android

Was this portion of line exempt from FRA requirement ?

Posted from Android

Why is this needed on a line that carries two trains per day? Whens the last time No's 3 and 4 crashed into each other? Put the money towards border security instead. 

Curently BNSF has PTC in operation from Las Animas Junction to La Junta,  The section that funding is being provide for is east of Las Animas and sees daily freight trains, locals, grain trains, wind energy equipement movemnts as well as unit coal trains and the two Amtrak trains.  

P Wrote:
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> What a colossal waste of money.

$9.16 million?

It may or may not be a waste of money, but a "colossal" waste?  This is the US Government we are talking about.  $9.1 million is a rounding error, the feds have made much, much bigger wastes than this.  If it turns out to be a waste, it will be a tiny one in the grand scheme of things unfortunately.

In the Federal scheme of things. $9.1 million is a “drop in the bucket.” To me it might be colossal, but it’s a funding level for a very minor project. A million...or ten million...just doesn’t go very far, unfortunately. This is a project, not even anything that might be called a program. 

We should just just move ahead with these things. Argue over the big stuff, er, programs. 

BNSF is putting in PTC on a number of routes that were exempt. They seem to think it's a good enough idea to spend money on it.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> Why is this needed on a line that carries two
> trains per day?

BNSF is quite happy to have you continue to believe this.
There is considerable freight traffic east of La Junta and BNSF has been able to leverage the TIGER funds for the SWC for their own traffic. BSB

Posted from iPhone

I wonder if this will improve the signal reliability?  Signal trouble delays are very frequent on this segment for the Southwest Chief.
Also, they will gain a few minutes at Dodge City, because the PTC is already engaged.

mp51w Wrote:
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> Also, they will gain a few minutes at Dodge City,
> because the PTC is already engaged.

Not really... When the outbound LAJ engineer signs out, all the route data stored is deleted and will have to be "repopulated" (don't know the actual term) by the new outbound crew.

It's 90 MPH Track (ATS) but it sucks they will never attain that speed again!