PTC in operation on over 98 percent of required Class 1 route miles
Written by David C. Lester, Editor-in-Chief
Norfolk Southern today reported Q1 2020 financial results.
David C. Lester
According to the Association of American Railroads, PTC is up and running on over 98 percent of the Class 1 rail mileage required by law to have it. Here is a AAR press release with more details:
At the end of 2019, Positive Train Control (PTC) was in operation across the vast majority – 98.5 percent – of the required Class I route miles according to newly released data from the Association of American Railroads. The nation’s largest railroads remain on track to meet the final deadline for full implementation of the critical safety technology, December 31, 2020, with several railroads already operating the technology across their entire required PTC footprint. For the remainder of this year, the Class I railroads will continue to focus on testing to ensure that PTC systems are fully interoperable and work seamlessly across operations as railroads regularly run across each other’s tracks.
“America’s freight railroads will finish the job on PTC by the final December 2020 deadline,” said AAR president and CEO Ian Jefferies. “PTC – coupled with other advanced technologies – drives down risk and fuels railroads’ next leap forward to ensure our people, infrastructure and equipment are safer than ever. Railroads are committed to an accident-free future, and fully implementing PTC continues our industry’s progress toward that ultimate target.”
As of December 31, 2019, the Class I railroads had invested $11.47 billion in the development, installation, and implementation of PTC and had the technology in operation across 53,001 miles of their 53,676 miles of PTC-required track. As required by law, all seven railroads had installed all necessary wayside, back office, and locomotive hardware; had all spectrum in place; and completed all necessary employee training as of December 31, 2018.
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