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The $900 billion COVID-19 funding package President Trump signed Sunday contains some $4 billion for the MTA, which includes Metro-North Railroad. Proposed layoffs and drastic service cuts can be shelved, for now. WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne spoke with Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi about what the funding means and more.
First, the Federal Railroad Administration on Tuesday announced there is now full implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) technology on all required freight and passenger routes across the country, meeting a December 31 deadline. Metro-North and Long Island Railroad announced December 23 they had completed full implementation. Through PTC, the trains automatically communicate in real time with central dispatching offices – sharing information on train position, speed and the actions of the train engineer. If a train is traveling too fast, the system automatically takes control of the train to slow it down while alerting
RailNews
Just after sunrise, an eastbound Norfolk Southern train passes beneath the former Pennsylvania Railroad signals at Lilly, Pa., on June 4, 2019. These signals were replaced as part of PTC.
Photo by Steve Barry.
By Railfan & Railroad
WASHINGTON Federal and industry officials are hailing the news that Positive Train Control has been fully installed on the American rail system as a “landmark” achievement. After more than 12 years of work and two deadline extensions, the Federal Railroad Administration certified the last railroad’s system, NJ Transit, on Dec. 18. The certification came less than two weeks before the long-awaited Dec. 31 deadline.
PTC systems are designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, incursions into established work zones, and movements of trains through switches left in the wrong position. Congress mandated that railroads install the technology in 2008 following a deadly head-on wreck in Chatsworth, Calif. Railroad
Norfolk Southern and United Parcel Service employee medical records hacked and leaked.
With the Positive Train Control (PTC) implementation deadline of December 31, 2020 just three days away, last week the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” or NPRM to revise regulations around PTC system
functioning and PTC systems and reporting.
Here is part of the NPRM:
FRA is proposing to revise its regulations governing changes to positive train control (PTC) systems and reporting on PTC system functioning. First, recognizing that the railroad industry intends to enhance further FRA-certified PTC systems to continue improving rail safety and PTC technology’s reliability and operability, FRA proposes to modify the process by which a host railroad must submit a request for amendment (RFA) to FRA before making certain changes to its PTC Safety Plan (PTCSP) and FRA-certified PTC system. Second, to enable more effective FRA oversight, FRA propose
Major rail safety technology installed before deadline timesunion.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesunion.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
FRA announces full implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC), two days before the Dec. 31, 2020 deadline.
File photo
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced today that positive train control (PTC) technology is in operation on all 57,536 required freight and passenger railroad route miles, prior to the statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, set by Congress. In addition, as required, FRA has certified that each host railroad’s PTC system complies with the technical requirements for PTC systems. Furthermore, railroads have reported that interoperability has been achieved between each applicable host and tenant railroad that operates on PTC-governed main lines.