DENVER — Denver’s troubled A Line commuter rail service to Denver International Airport may face a shutdown by the federal government if it doesn’t find a solution to ongoing crossing-gate issues, Colorado Public Radio reports.
Those crossing-gate problems required the RTD and its operator, Denver Transit Partners, to receive a waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration to operate despite crossing gates that have not reliably met the requirement for activating within the allotted time period before a train arrives. Denver Transit Partners has hired flaggers to protect those crossings, the subject of a lawsuit and countersuit between the operator and the RTD. [See “Problems with Denver airport rail line lead to lawsuit,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 21, 2018, and “Denver RTD files countersuit against commuter-train operator,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 15, 2018.]
But in a Nov. 15 letter to the RTD, Robert Lauby, the FRA’s associate administrator for railroad safety and chief safety officer, told the RTD it had 30 days to submit a plan for correcting its grade crossing issues within one year. If the RTD fails to do so, the letter said, the FRA will consider actions “potentially including enhanced enforcement, modification of the existing waiver — including by imposing additional conditions as necessary for rail safety and/or reducing the duration of the waiver — or revoking the waiver.”
Lauby’s letter noted that in one week in August 2018, FRA inspectors found 63 instances where warning times did not meet the standards required in the waiver. “This level of noncompliance with the conditions of the waiver is unacceptable.”
Similar crossing issues also led the FRA to decline to provide a waiver to begin operating of the G Line to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, Colo., which was supposed to have opened in August 2016.
uh huh. A system that has been successfully used 99.999% of the time is spurned in favor of “modern new technology” (wireless). I’d put this in the same category as ‘self driving’ cars!
My first read of the headline was that the FRA was threatening to shut down the airport itself. Hey, stranger things have happened! Headline writers can create some mass confusion when they leave words out. In this case if it read “line to airport”, the meaning would have been crystal clear. As it was, a quick glance led to a misreading of the actual situation.
This has really become a bad joke here in the greater Denver area. My understanding is that the wireless crossing activation equipment does not play nice with government mandated PTC. If I am misinformed please feel free to correct me. If my information is correct however the fix would seem to me is to hard wire the system like every other railroad has done for years. We have many grade crossings in the area for the UPRR and the BNSF. They have no problems like this. RTD even has light rail lines that cross streets at grade and they have no problems. It may be that PTC is not required on light rail or that their system is hardwired. Bottom line is that it is 2018 and crossing systems have been around longer than that. There is no excuse for these delays. Get it fixed RTD or hire railroaders to run your system!
What the heck is going on?