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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