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.
The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has passed H.R. 3763, the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015, commonly referred to as the “Highway Bill.” Buried deep within the document (p. 504) is language with provisions to extend the PTC deadline to Dec. 31, 2018, with up to 24 months of additional extensions granted by the FRA on a case-by-case basis.
Canada’s three major railways should benefit from the Oct. 19, 2015 sea-to-sea election sweep by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada. Trudeau’s party even managed to get four members of parliament elected in Alberta’s two metropolises, Calgary and Edmonton—the ideological and financial anchors of the defeated Stephen Harper’s pro-pipeline and anti-rail Conservative government.
Imagine sharing with two equally qualified colleagues the decision-making authority affecting long-term railroad service quality, profitability and capital investment. Such is the power of the three Senate-confirmed members of the STB—Chairman Dan Elliott and Deb Miller, both Democrats; and Republican Ann Begeman.
It’s Friday afternoon, before Columbus Day weekend. I’ve just spent most of the day posting a lot of useful news on our website (well, at least I think it’s useful). At 4:30 pm, a press release invades my email inbox. It’s from Amtrak. It has to do with expansion of Amtrak’s Pets on Trains program to Northeast Corridor Regional trains. Okay, I say, I’ll give it a look. It’s not earth shattering news, and our business-to-business publication won’t suffer for not running it. So I give it a look.
That whooshing sound you may have heard early on Wednesday, Sept. 30 was a collective sigh of relief expelled by everybody who has been beating their head against the wall since 2008, when the Rail Safety Improvement Act mandating fully operational Positive Train Control by the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, 2016, was passed.
U.S. Senator Charles “Hold That Pose” Schumer (D-N.Y.), everybody’s favorite publicity-seeking, TV-camera-loving narcissistic politician, has been saying publicly that Amtrak’s board of directors has selected Alstom Transport to supply a fleet of new high-speed trainsets for the Boston-New York-Washington D.C. Northeast Corridor, to succeed aging Acela Express equipment. Schumer, according to reliable sources with whom I’ve spoken at Amtrak, has opened his big mouth way, way too soon.
Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg will respond to questions before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at her confirmation hearing to become permanent FRA Administrator on Thursday, Sept.
An assistant to the president of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company once said, “… let us direct our thoughts toward what would be required in the way of equipment or system for the safe operation of a train with no person at the controls. It is obvious that such a step must be made if we are to approach crewless train operation. It is equally obvious that the crewless train would have no one to look at wayside signals and therefore we should begin thinking in terms of an overall system that does not require wayside signals.”
Here’s a mystery for you, but don’t anticipate—as in the board game, “Clue”—that it’s “Col. Mustard, in the library, with a candlestick.” The perp here is the U.S. Senate—the deed done under the Capitol Dome and with a pen (okay, a word processor).
