Steve Ditmeyer’s article “PTC vs. Legacy Train Control Redux” is very thought-provoking. Yes, Congress did define PTC by functionality, not technology. No, PTC need not be tied to fixed wayside block signals (interlockings are a whole other issue).
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard or read or been told how much safer rail transportation is in Europe than it is in the United States.
Executive Summary: After one year of investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board has determined that the cause of the fatal derailment of Amtrak train 188 at Frankford Junction is exactly the same as the cause determined within eight hours by everyone who knows anything about railroading.
The BBC has filed the following report on the February 2016 head-on collision of two commuter trains in Bavaria, Germany:
All you need to know about FRA’s NPRM, Train Crew Staffing, can be found by clicking HERE. Or maybe by reading below. Your call.
You remember this from not so long ago, don’t you?: “In much of Asia and Europe, engineers are protected by a technology known as positive train control or PTC.”
Editor’s note: The following is David Schanoes’s presentation, “Better, Safer Railroading: 10% Planning, 90% Execution,” at Railway Age’s 2015 Passenger Trains on Freight Railroads Conference.
Last week, the FRA released its most recent report to Congress on the status of PTC implementation. As these things go, it’s not a bad report. It touches on all the big issues; says all the right things; and almost pleads with Congress to do something, but not just anything, the right something re: the approaching deadline.
You know the kind I mean: the ones where nobody gets hurt, nothing blows up, and nobody shows up, except you.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a second update of the May 12 fatal Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia, announced that it found no indication that the locomotive engineer of train no. 188 was using his cell phone to talk or text while operating the train. In response to questions posed separately, NTSB confirmed that indeed the cell phone records support the engineer’s statement that he utilized the cell phone to call 911 after the accident.