Union Pacific Plays Hardball

The big news in the railroad industry is that no one expects the railroads can meet the Congressionally imposed December 31 deadline to install positive train control, yet Congress has so far been unwilling to extend the deadline. Unless it does so, Union Pacific says it will stop allowing any passenger trains on its rails starting January 1. That means an end to many Amtrak trains as well as some commuter trains in California, Illinois, and elsewhere.

Positive train control would force trains to stop to prevent collisions if the train driver failed to act. Congress passed this law in 2008 after a horrific crash between a commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles. The commuter train operator was apparently text messaging and missed a red light, resulting in the crash. The law requires the use of positive train control on all rail lines that carry passenger trains and/or toxic gases.

Unfortunately, says transportation expert Steve Ditmeyer, the problems that beset the railroads are partly their own fault. Ditmeyer points out that Burlington Northern installed positive train control on 250 miles of its track in the late 1980s and found that, if positive train control were designed to completely replace existing signal technologies, the costs would be partly offset by the reduction in signal costs while the benefits would not only include safety but a 25 percent increase in the capacity of single-track rail lines. The result was a three-to-one benefit-cost ratio. Unfortunately, rather than installing the technology over its entire railroads, a new BN president decided to focus his attention on merging with the Santa Fe.

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After Congress passed the 2008 law, instead of replacing existing signals, Ditmeyer told a group of transportation professionals on August 12, the railroads decided to implement positive train control on top of the existing signal systems. This increased the costs while allowing little or no increase in capacities, resulting in a benefit-cost ratio of less than 0.05. This greatly reduced the railroads’ enthusiasm for positive train control.

If Ditmeyer is right, then the barriers to installing positive train control are not technological but institutional. Instead of asking their signaling departments to install positive train control, the railroads should have given the job to their information technology departments. If this is correct, however, you’d think that least one of the six or seven major railroads in the United States would have thought of that. In any case, it will be interesting to see how Congress responds to threats from the railroads to shut down major portions of Amtrak and commuter rail systems.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

3 Responses to Union Pacific Plays Hardball

  1. JOHN1000 says:

    Congress should double down and immediately pass and fast-track the Keystone pipeline, so Union Pacific and the others will lose the profits from all those tanker cars of oil.

  2. stevely844 says:

    I’m with the railroads on this one. Congress dumped an unfunded mandate with an artificial deadline on them in response to that Metrolink accident a few years ago. Now, despite billions spent and progress on the installation, we have the FRA playing hardball and not extending the deadline. I’d shut down my operation too, rather than pay fines for non-compliance.

  3. CapitalistRoader says:

    Chicago is the center of the Hopey Changey universe, and they’re talking a 2019 PTC completion. Of course the Democrats had a majority in both houses when the PTC bill was passed…what are they willing to trade to extend the deadline now that they’re in the minority?

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