Positive Train Control (PTC)

I first wrote about Positive Train Control in 2017. 

I've collected a couple of videos since then.

(new window)  A BNSF totuorial about PTC. At 2:28, it says it will stop the train with "a full service application." Is that emergency braking or is that maximum safe braking?

(new window) This is a hot (high priority) looking stack train that they have burning time on the mainline. He caught a second stopped train incident at 14:10. (It surprises me how bad radios still sound in the 21st Century.)

Before BNSF turned on PTC for the Metra trains in Chicagoland, they had to reprint the schedules because it took longer to turn around the trains. In particular, they had to wait 20 minutes while the PTC computers in the locomotive rebooted to go in the opposite direction. Later, when UP was going to turn PTC on, new schedules were announced. But somehow UP avoided the schedule change. I never understood how UP got around the 20-min reboot issue.

The deadline for implementing PTC is Dec 31, 2020. The freight railroads have invested $11b while the FRA has doled out $2.6b in grants and loans. [rail.nridigital] I assume the FRA assistance is for commuter railroads such as METRA that already have severe budget issues. And museums are going to quit running exhibition trains because they can't afford to add PTC equipment to their locomotives. And/or they don't want to destroy the historical integrity of the locomotives. The article didn't mention that one reason the original Dec 31, 2015, deadline was missed was that the FCC took a long time (over a year if I remember correctly) to allocate the frequencies needed by the many wayside radio stations that needed to be installed.

Since PTC includes in-cab signaling, why were new tri-color (Darth Vader) signals installed? For the benefit of the railfans? I think the real reason was for the preservation of jobs in the signaling department. I read an article that the installation of PTC should have been assigned to the Information Technologies Department instead of the Signaling Department. The signaling workers could have been retrained to help the IT department with the additional workload. The new signals are not only expensive, they preclude implementing more modern ways of running the trains such as "moving blocks." Actually, moving blocks could still be implemented by simply turning off all of that expensive new equipment.

20140607 0014
Looking West from Forest Avenue in Downers Grove, IL
The old signal bridge is behind the two new cantilevered bridges. I noticed that the brick base of the old interlocking tower is still standing on the left. It housed some of the old signaling equipment. It, as well as the old bridges, have been removed.

It is one thing for the general media like the Chicago Tribune to grab an inappropriate photo to spruce up an article, but it is another thing when a trade publication does it. The following photo is of CTA tracks, not Metra tracks. The latest I have read, Metra is one of four railroads that is at risk of missing the Dec 31, 2020, deadline.

rail.nridigital
Chicago loop junction. Rail operator Metra says that achieving PTC interoperability in Chicago will be complicated due to the complexity of the rail network. Image: Daniel Schwen.

Most workers in the trade would recognize the dozen double-slip switches at Tower A-2 as plenty complicated. They didn't need to use a photo of CTA tracks.

Satellite