Our discussion regarding the possible reroute of the Southwest Chief away from its existing "via La Junta' routing and that such could be the result of the mandated Positive Train Control under Rail Safety Act of 2008 leads me to wonder if the existing California Zephyr routing over the D&RGW could be in jeopardy.
First I have no knowledge to what extent HAZMAT is presently routed over the Rio Grande and if it is to what extent could it be rerouted over the Overland Route, which of course has qualifying RTC.
It appears that most traffic over the Rio Grande is coal - and that of course is beyond the scope of the PTC mandate.
I guess what I'm addressing is if PTC must be installed over the D&RGW, would such be solely for the benefit of Amtrak? If UP has no need otherwise for such to handle their traffic, guess who will pony up?
Could a permanent reroute of the Zephyr via the Overland Route be in the offing? Enquiring mind wants to know.
Posted by PullmanCo (Member # 1138) on :
On my last CZ trip, I saw manifest freight with tank cars. I cannot believe all of them were full of corn syrup. That was also back in 2005.
Unlike Albuquerque, which is another city on the line, Fraser-Winter Park and Glenwood Springs are destinations for 5/6. That's all the more true during the ski season. Jump back to the Overland Route, and lose that traffic, and its revenue, forever.
Permanently losing the ski resorts would probably be a good reason to put up the 180 day notice.
Just my thoughts...
Posted by rresor (Member # 128) on :
Mr. Norman:
A correction here. PTC is required on any rail route that:
1) Carries regular passenger trains 2) Carries any volume of hazmat 3) Carries more than 5 MGT of any kind of traffic
So the DRGW route would be included in any PTC requirement no matter what.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
I stand informed and corrected, Mr. Resor. I did not detect the 5 MGT threshold from my review of the legislation. Possibly such was written into 'regs' that the legislation directed the FRA to write.
If as reported over at another Forum at which we are both active, that the BNSF "via La Junta" line is solely passenger Albuquerque-Newton and solely Amtrak Lsmy-Newton then that is likely the only line over which a possible "PTC reroute" could occur.
It appears this issue is laid to rest.
Posted by George Harris (Member # 2077) on :
Five, that is 5 (FIVE) MGT per year? You have got to be kidding!! In general, this is below the threshold where ABS or CTC is considered worth doing by a lot of companies, at least in the past.
Posted by rresor (Member # 128) on :
FRA calculates that its rules will require PTC on about 77,000 of the roughly 100,000 route miles of Class I and commuter railroad track in the US. But recall that most of the cost of PTC is tied up in on-board equipment and the central office. There is relatively little cost for wayside equipment, so back when I was working for BN on the evaluation of ARES (their PTC version, circa 1987), the conclusion was that it was best to just equip the entire network, since the incremental cost of additional track mileage was so small and the potential incremental benefits were so large.