I hear from a friend with direct connections, that "Metrolink" has already been putting out feelers to hire the expertise needed, to quickly install cab signaling and "Semi-Automatic" train controls.

This is very encouraging to say the least. On their own tracks, or even on SDNR, this shouldn't too much of a problem. Anyway, SDNR should join them in the effort.

But where they run on UP or BNSF, I'm not so sure; as cooperation with passenger service needs has always been problematic. The big fight will of course be in getting these private companies to apply such semi-automatic controls to their freight trains one day sooner than the new law mandates them to.

In the same way that the original I.C.C. (now F.R.A.) mandate for ATC above 79mph, actually caused such systems already in service to be removed (most places did not exceed 79 anyway); the new mandate will be adhered to only to the letter of the law - and not one day sooner, nor one feature more than required.

They will continue to drag their collective feet and resist, just as they have been doing all along. The usual excuse over the years, has been the supposed concern that an automatic brake application could come at the wrong time, derailing the train. Now just think about that. How preposterous! If there is such a time as the "Wrong time to stop", could it be because freight trains with pneumatically controlled brakes are already too damn long to be safely operated at all, anyhow - period!.

Perhaps the law should also mandate a limit to how long a train with pneumatically controlled brakes can be; so that the brakes can be safely applied at any time they need to be. I'll just bet that another languishing safety technology, electrically controlled brakes, will happen much quicker, especially if longer freight trains really are more economical (that economy is also debatable).

it has probably been just a "Lack of Vision" in high places in the industry; but it has long been galling that these safety technologies have been languishing around for decades, with the required infrastructure already installed in most places for pushing twenty to thirty years now; that the freight railroads still have continued to resist their use. Clearly, they will continue to so - right up to the very limit of the law.

But the public need not wait any longer. Use of these safety measures are decades overdue. The time is now! The California Governor should press Congress for the legal means to force them sooner, at least on track where the state or its municipalities are paying the freight railroads for rights to run passenger trains, and of course on state owned trackage as well.

We shall see!

OPB