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12/5/2016

VHB Perspective: Is there really any positive side to PTC?

By Terry Byrne, VHB director of systems-transit and rail services
 
Yes, there most certainly are more positives than negatives with PTC, but I am not sure all have to do with life safety. We first need to look at what caused the federal mandate in the first place and yet how ironic it is that the very cause of it will be the final solution.

Sometimes, it takes a catastrophe like the one that occurred Friday, Sept. 12, 2008, in Chatsworth, Calif., claiming the lives of 25 people and injuring more than 100 others, to rally the troops and make some good from a clear tragedy.  Congress took swift and immediate action and placed the acronym “PTC” into play.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the cause of the accident was clearly the fault of the Metrolink train engineer who proceeded through a “Stop” signal into a stretch of track soon to be occupied by a Union Pacific freight train. The NTSB surmised that the train’s engineer was sending and receiving text messages and was mostly distracted from his assigned duties.

The concept of “texting” now dates back some 24 years, but has truly become a must have item in the world today. If it was this technology that caused the accident, is it now ironic that we need to deploy GPS-based systems, smart back offices and radio-based transmissions to provide for a safe operation?

Automatic Train Control (ATC) has been around since the early 1920s and was actually mandated by the ICC on certain railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) came up with the concept of “continuous” cab signal system using code track circuits to convey the condition of the track ahead. This system became the U.S. standard on many railroads and is still the underlying base signal system on the Northeast Corridor (NEC) today. Amtrak’s Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System (ACSES) was actually grandfathered by the FRA as one of the acceptable systems to be compliant with the new PTC law defined in the Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This “9” aspect cab signal systems consist of 2 power frequency codes along with a 900 MHz radio to release the positive stop function on the cab based system.

Would this ACSES have prevented the Chatsworth accident? Quite possibly. At the very least, it would have reduced the speed of the collision to 15 mph, limiting the severity of the collision. Would it have prevented the derailment at Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx? Without a doubt. By enforcing the civil speed restriction even if the operator failed to brake, the ACSES system would have reduced the speed to a safe level ahead of the curve that caused the derailment. Looking back, I am sure historians will surmise as to why train control systems in use for nearly 100 years were not in place or enforced at these two fatal locations.

Being a young starry eyed signal employee for a now defunct Class I railroad, I said to a much more experienced operational supervisor, “You need a signal system to run a railroad.” The supervisor was swift to respond and point out — he needed only three things to run a railroad: track, locomotive and an engineer, the rest he said were “bells and whistles.” Looking back, he was right. In fact, there are still many railroads that operate in “Dark” territory, which as we all probably know means no signal system. No notice of trains ahead, misaligned switches or broken rails. And by the way, it is still legal to operate a passenger and/or heavy freight train at 59 mph under darkness.

For many years, Class Is and many state-run commuter-rail agencies placed their capital funding into expansion and technology that improved speed, but unfortunately neglecting systems that provided safety, like the signal system. Even today, the implementation of PTC is so challenging because we are dealing with signal systems that date back more than 50 to 60 years and that have long outlasted their “life expectancy.” I know of electro-mechanical relays that have been in-service for nearly 90 years and still today are providing a vital function within many of the rail lines we operate today. The last time I checked, a computer’s life expectancy is five years, cars maybe ten, roofs on houses? Why then do we expect systems that provide safe operations to function 50 years and beyond?
 
The PTC mandate has forced the rail industry today to not only step up and provide for a nationwide train control system, but also to bring up the level of nearly every mainline track  to acceptable standards. Processors replacing electro-mechanical relays, advanced code track systems removing the need for signal pole lines, cab signals removing the need on the wayside intermediate or automatic signals, and enforced speed restrictions to restrict train operation beyond that permitted by civil calculations. PTC will bring up the United States rail safety to a level that will be once again pointed at as the way things should be done.

Terry Byrne has provided design services for major railroads and transit agencies throughout the United States for the past 43 years, and is a nationally recognized specialist in grade crossings, rail signaling and communications.