The VIRGINIAN-PILOT reports on HIGH TECH MEETS OLD TECH with the development and possible implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems by the nation's railroads. The article reports that "the systems are being designed to improve the safety and efficiency of the railroads."
John M. Samuels, senior vice president of operations, planning and support at Norfol Southern Corp., suggests, "What positive train control is, quite frankly, is as much a revolution as going from steam to diesel. It's that much of a transition. What it is, in essence, is developing the digital railroad."
But apparently PTC's proponents are having trouble coming up with a system that is cost-effective. Tom White, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads states, "The railroads have spent hundreds of millions on this. The hope is that you can come up with a technology that increases safety and increases efficiency and is cost-effective. But no one can find one that's cost-effective."
As reported by Fred C. Gamst below, due to the vagaries of trains made up of mixtures of cars of mis-reported tonnage and a variety of braking systems in various states of dis-repair, the current PTC systems cannot be relied on to stop trains when and only when they should be stopped. In particular, Samuels warns, "We can't afford to have a system that's stopping trains left and right."
The Federal Railroad Administration informed Congress that PTC "wouldn't be cost-effective for railroads" and that "increased safety and efficiency gains wouldn't pay for the cost of positive train control in 20 years. " According to Samuels, "Railroads are so safe that the cost of accidents doesn't justify the expense."
Let me laminate that last one for my wallet. But as anyone who has witnessed the ongoing RCO fiasco understands, it's not about safety. It's about jobs. Or rather the elimination of jobs. And the carriers are comfortable with a sort of double standard when it comes to efficiency. If you were a shipper or someone who took pride in serving a customer, you might think efficiency had in part to do with moving products in a timely manner. Apparently the most important aspect of efficiency for the carriers is cutting labor costs through cutting jobs and getting more out of fewer people. And thanks to the quasi-monopoly the railroads enjoy, they can get away with expensive experiments like RCO and PTC.
Oh, and I'm sure they are hoping to get a little public subsidy for PTC. The article reports a pricetag of $4 billion to $6 billion to implement PTC on just the nation's mainlines. Watch out for that boondoggle. And the next time you think about your kids struggling to get a good education in a crowded underfunded classrooom, or you think about all the effort that is going into destroying the United States Postal Service, AMTRAK, or Social Security . . . just think "magic of the free marketplace." For the Cheap-Labor Conservatives it's always a one-way street and don't you forget it.
Here's a postscript to this story: According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, our infrastructure G.P.A. has fallen from a D+ to D:
