Railroads Say They Need More Time to Implement Safety Technology

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--U.S. railroads say they need more time to implement technology that is designed prevent accidents by automatically stopping or slowing a train before certain collisions. U.S. law now calls for passenger railways to implement Positive Train Control (PTC) technology by the end of 2015. But the American Association of Railroads (AAR) says the industry won't be able to meet that deadline.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress to push back the deadline by five years.

Industrial Info is tracking seven PTC projects in the U.S. worth $173.76 million. Five of those projects, valued at $158 million, are under construction. One project is in the engineering phase, and the seventh is in the planning phase, where a variety of factors could alter its outcome.

The PTC system addition for the commuter rail system in Canton, Massachusetts, has a total investment value of $114.2 million. The project by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was in the preliminary design phase as of fourth-quarter 2014, with completion set for fourth-quarter 2015.

PTC will be required for all passenger rail lines, according to the AAR. As mandated by Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA), the technology must be designed to prevent:

• Train-to-train collisions
• Derailments caused by excessive speed
• Unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance activities are taking place
• Movement of a train through a track switch left in the wrong position

The association, which has voiced support for the safety technology, says the industry already has spent more than $5 billion on PTC, and probably will spend as much as $10 billion to fully implement it. However, "the challenges that railroads have faced implementing PTC will mean they will not meet the statutory deadline," the industry organization said in its outlook report for 2015.

So far, only 60% of the required locomotives have been fully or partially equipped with PTC, half of the required PTC wayside units have been deployed, and one-third of the PTC antennas have been installed, according to the AAR.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) announced bipartisan legislation on March 5 to push the deadline for full implementation of PTC to 2020. "We must work to do everything we can to improve train safety and accident prevention, without burdening our nation's freight and passenger rail industry," Blunt said in press release. "Unmanageable deadlines could result in higher costs and a disruption of service."

AAR Chief Executive Officer Edward Hamberger said the legislation "is a reasonable and responsible extension and provides the freight and passenger rail industries the time needed to fully install, test and approve PTC."

Whether recent passenger train accidents will have an impact on the legislation remains to be seen. On March 3, a commuter train in New York stuck a vehicle and caught fire, killing six people. Responding to another deadly train-automobile accident in early February, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York) said: "Although positive train control is designed to prevent train to train collisions, installing this critical technology would also allow us to detect grade crossing malfunctions or objects on the tracks."

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, three offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.