OMAHA — Union Pacific says it has completed positive train control implementation by activating the final segment of track requiring the safety system. More than 17,000 miles of the railroad are now operating with PTC in 22 states.
“PTC is one of the biggest rail industry breakthroughs, designed to keep our crews and communities safer through technology,” Greg Richardson, Union Pacific general director, Operating Systems and Practice, said in a Monday press release. “While Union Pacific began its first PTC operations nearly four years ago, we have now completed our initial implementation and continue supporting other railroads in our mutual efforts to achieve interoperability and safely operate on our rail lines.”
UP lines host 25 freight and passenger railroads which must achieve PTC interoperability by December 2020. Sixteen have done so, UP reports, covering 85% of the railroad’s interoperable train-miles. UP is working with the remaining railroads with the goal of achieving interoperability by mid-2020.
It’s the interoperability issue that’s holding up full implementation. In its rush to judgement congress overlooked the fact that the rails were starting from ground zero, and placed unreal and burdensome costs and deadlines upon them. Railroad “A’s” Back Office Server may communicate perfectly well with its own locomotives, but when they move over onto “B’S” railroad and BOS, there are many unresolved difficulties in communications. The problems first surfaced among commuter railroads which, in the east, may operate over any combination of NS, CSX, and Amtrak tracks on a single run. Or worse, Amtrak’s Cardinal, which operates over six railroads in its run from Chicago to DC.
Let’s be real UP, you don’t care about local communities and you particularly don’t care about your crews. You will also use PTC to further remove your crews from your roster…..