Russ is at it again
Author: Shill
Date: 09-05-2021 - 13:47
I guess ole Russ has an opinion on orientation in addition to women and people of color. Yeah AFT 2.0 is going to have corporate sponsors lined up around the block.
by co614
Posted: 2 days ago
Wes makes some valid points. Let's be honest. PTC was viewed by those we elect to lead us ( Senators/Congressmen/POTUS) to " cure" a safety issue cruelly brought to national attention by a commuter train engineer who passed a stop signal because he was distracted by being busy texting his boyfriend. Soon thereafter he crashed into a standing freight train causing fatalities and many serious life long injuries.
The firestorm resulting from this tragedy caused the Congress to pass into law mandating the Class 1's to install PTC so as to make mainline railroading in the future " 100% safe"/
My guess is the it must be the world record holder for unfunded mandates. IIRC the industry has spent in excess of $ 20 Billion ( yes Billion) so far and the meter is still running.
From a Class 1's perspective the silver lining is that PTC provides a major step towards autonomous trains which will become standard operating procedure sooner than anyone today can imagine.
As a matter of factual reality PTC is totally unnecessary on a mainline steam locomotive as there are ALWAYS multiple very qualified operating persons in the cab 100% of the time thus eliminating any chance of passing a stop signal or other rules violations.
HOWEVER, from the Class 1's lawyers perspectives PTC is absolutely mandatory as a critical piece of CYA hardware as if ANYTHING should go wrong ( derailment, grade crossing accident, trespasser fatality etc., etc. ) they'll be able to show the jury that the railroad did everything possible to equip it's locomotives with the latest and best safety equipment.
Therefore, all steam locomotives that want to be able to operate on the mainline will need to be fully PTC compliant.
IMHO-Ross Rowland