AAR: Freight railroads making measurable strides toward PTC implementation

Association of American Railroads (AAR) President and CEO Edward R. Hamberger said that America's freight rail industry is making progress on positive train control (PTC) and remains committed to ensure all is being done to safely reach the goal of nationwide interoperability.

Hamberger maintains that it is absolutely impossible to meet the congressionally mandated 2015 deadline for a fully functioning PTC system given the sheer size and scope of the order. He points out that freight railroads have a team of 10,000 employees, manufacturers, software designers and safety experts devoted full time to developing, installing and testing the safe creation of PTC.

“Freight railroads have been moving forward with PTC for years and remain 100 percent committed to ensuring this complex ‘system of systems’ gets safely installed and thoroughly vetted and tested. Our railroads have 62,000 miles to equip with PTC and getting that safely completed is a top priority.”

In the its most recent PTC progress report to the Federal Railroad Administration, said the following would be completed by the end of 2015:

• More than 11,000 railroad route miles equipped with PTC
• About 9,000 locomotives will be PTC ready
• 76 percent of the 34,000 required wayside units will be installed
• 67 percent of base station radios will be in place
• 32,446 of 95,971 railroad employees will be PTC trained

“Reaching deadlines is important, but even more important is that when PTC is turned on it is fully operational and enhancing safety,” said Hamberger, who noted freight railroads have already invested about $5.7 billion in private capital into PTC and expect to spend billions more by the time it is fully implemented.

Hamberger said the freight rail industry was transparent early on when it clearly warned policy makers the arbitrary deadline of 2015 was unachievable, something that has been echoed by former and current FRA officials, as well as others on Capitol Hill.

“Freight railroads have indicated for some time they require until 2018 to deploy all the necessary equipment and outfit the locomotive fleet, followed by up to two years of testing and validation that the nationwide system is properly working in all regions.”

The safety of freight rail operations is the industry’s top priority, and the statistics underscore the point: 2014 was the safest year on record for freight rail. Given enough time to ensure that the complicated safety network is working effectively, PTC will make a safe method of transportation even safer.