Positive Train Control is far better for managing train safety than automatic train control. With a Congress that continually lacks funding for the best system for our rail systems, the PTC never gets priority.
PTC is an unprecedented technical and operational challenge. (click here) Since enactment of RSIA, railroads have devoted enormous human and financial resources to develop a fully functioning PTC system over the 60,000 miles that are subject to the PTC mandate. Progress to date has been substantial. Railroads have retained more than 2,400 signal system personnel to implement PTC and has already spent $5 billion on PTC development and deployment. Railroads expect to spend more than $9 billion before development and installation is complete....
Automatic Train Control is a simple method to control speed and not the operation of the train.
ATC solves only one of the concerns of railroads.
If a CEO is attempting to solve the demands of the USA Congress every penny counts and explains why ATC is not installed at every curve of the rails of Amtrak.
The CEOs of Amtrak and the US Post Office have a unique set of circumstances that most other CEOs don't have; the Congress regulates their activities and takes a controlling role in the outcome of these public service companies.
...The diagram shows (click here) the basic architecture of a
fixed block automatic train control (ATC) system with its three main components - ATP
(Automatic Train Protection), ATO (Automatic Train Operation) and ATS (Automatic Train
Supervision). The basic safety requirement, to keep trains a safe distance apart, is
performed by the ATP, which has a control unit for each block. This control unit
receives the data from the blocks ahead, converts that into a speed limit for the block it
controls and sends the speed limit data to the track. The train picks up the
data using the codes transmitted along the track. The transmission system can be
track circuits, loops or beacons (balises) located along the track. For more details
see ATP Code Transmission....
The FACT of the matter is that Amtrak rails should have been fitted across the board a long time ago. The CEO should not have to pick and choose where safety is applied throughout the country. The FUNDING should have been there, but, the reason it hasn't is because Republicans seek to bankrupt Amtrak. In that reality of Republican politics lies the danger to the passenger and to the economy of the USA.
I mean let's face it, when Republicans want to promote war for "The USA Interests" which is the same as The Wall Street Interests, the money has to come from somewhere. The place war promotion finds it's funding is in domestic programs including the very food in the mouths of the poor. Realizing that Food Stamps turn into bullets and bombs did Amtrak funding ever have a chance?
There is still the OPPORTUNITY for derailments with ATC. It has it's limits. The 'station to station' length of track can easily lend itself to the same exact thing that happened in Baltimore. Whatever caused the increase of speed occurred in seconds and not minutes or hours. It would have happened even if ATC was in effect.
I congratulate the LA Times for actually doing research before they declared the trains the problem and not the Congress.
May 18, 2015
...The biggest holdup for Tri-Rail (click here) is securing airwaves or radio spectrum. Positive train control systems rely on wireless signals that transmit information about the location, speed and direction of trains.
If an engineer fails to stop at a red signal, exceeds the speed limit or ends up on the wrong track, the system is designed to stop the train.
"That's the beauty of it. The human being is still there but there's also technology to provide a backstop," said Tri-Rail executive director Jack Stephens....
I'd like to think when I express an opinion on this blog it isn't a waste of time by the reader and is an informed opinion and not one that is biased for any reason. Politics can be benign and a real horse race if there wasn't so much hanging in the balance of American politics since "W." The USA has never faced such a vicious and dangerous political paradigm ever before.
Populous politics can breed danger, especially in 2015. It breeds danger because it doesn't call up expertise. In the year 2015 it not only doesn't call up experts in the real world, but, substitutes God as a ruler and sovereign.
God as defined by populous politics with the right wing as a replacement and controlling entity based in 'earned blessing; ie: "God is on our side." Therefore, the people that want to spend money on domestic programs, even the farm bill, isn't in step with god and become 'the underdeserving.' After all, abortion is the work of the devil, which brings into play the opposite God and the overall element of CONTROL.
Alas, children are so susceptible it is difficult to understand why anyone resists the ultimate government of a Christian theocracy. But, but, but, it is a benevolent Christian theocracy that respects other religions, but, maintains control of the best belief system for all.
PTC is an unprecedented technical and operational challenge. (click here) Since enactment of RSIA, railroads have devoted enormous human and financial resources to develop a fully functioning PTC system over the 60,000 miles that are subject to the PTC mandate. Progress to date has been substantial. Railroads have retained more than 2,400 signal system personnel to implement PTC and has already spent $5 billion on PTC development and deployment. Railroads expect to spend more than $9 billion before development and installation is complete....
Automatic Train Control is a simple method to control speed and not the operation of the train.
ATC solves only one of the concerns of railroads.
If a CEO is attempting to solve the demands of the USA Congress every penny counts and explains why ATC is not installed at every curve of the rails of Amtrak.
The CEOs of Amtrak and the US Post Office have a unique set of circumstances that most other CEOs don't have; the Congress regulates their activities and takes a controlling role in the outcome of these public service companies.
...The diagram shows (click here) the basic architecture of a
fixed block automatic train control (ATC) system with its three main components - ATP
(Automatic Train Protection), ATO (Automatic Train Operation) and ATS (Automatic Train
Supervision). The basic safety requirement, to keep trains a safe distance apart, is
performed by the ATP, which has a control unit for each block. This control unit
receives the data from the blocks ahead, converts that into a speed limit for the block it
controls and sends the speed limit data to the track. The train picks up the
data using the codes transmitted along the track. The transmission system can be
track circuits, loops or beacons (balises) located along the track. For more details
see ATP Code Transmission....The FACT of the matter is that Amtrak rails should have been fitted across the board a long time ago. The CEO should not have to pick and choose where safety is applied throughout the country. The FUNDING should have been there, but, the reason it hasn't is because Republicans seek to bankrupt Amtrak. In that reality of Republican politics lies the danger to the passenger and to the economy of the USA.
I mean let's face it, when Republicans want to promote war for "The USA Interests" which is the same as The Wall Street Interests, the money has to come from somewhere. The place war promotion finds it's funding is in domestic programs including the very food in the mouths of the poor. Realizing that Food Stamps turn into bullets and bombs did Amtrak funding ever have a chance?
There is still the OPPORTUNITY for derailments with ATC. It has it's limits. The 'station to station' length of track can easily lend itself to the same exact thing that happened in Baltimore. Whatever caused the increase of speed occurred in seconds and not minutes or hours. It would have happened even if ATC was in effect.
I congratulate the LA Times for actually doing research before they declared the trains the problem and not the Congress.
May 18, 2015
...The biggest holdup for Tri-Rail (click here) is securing airwaves or radio spectrum. Positive train control systems rely on wireless signals that transmit information about the location, speed and direction of trains.
If an engineer fails to stop at a red signal, exceeds the speed limit or ends up on the wrong track, the system is designed to stop the train.
"That's the beauty of it. The human being is still there but there's also technology to provide a backstop," said Tri-Rail executive director Jack Stephens....
I'd like to think when I express an opinion on this blog it isn't a waste of time by the reader and is an informed opinion and not one that is biased for any reason. Politics can be benign and a real horse race if there wasn't so much hanging in the balance of American politics since "W." The USA has never faced such a vicious and dangerous political paradigm ever before.
Populous politics can breed danger, especially in 2015. It breeds danger because it doesn't call up expertise. In the year 2015 it not only doesn't call up experts in the real world, but, substitutes God as a ruler and sovereign.
God as defined by populous politics with the right wing as a replacement and controlling entity based in 'earned blessing; ie: "God is on our side." Therefore, the people that want to spend money on domestic programs, even the farm bill, isn't in step with god and become 'the underdeserving.' After all, abortion is the work of the devil, which brings into play the opposite God and the overall element of CONTROL.
Alas, children are so susceptible it is difficult to understand why anyone resists the ultimate government of a Christian theocracy. But, but, but, it is a benevolent Christian theocracy that respects other religions, but, maintains control of the best belief system for all.
