by Jersey_Mike
More "and then something happens" logic. Have you ever designed a train control system? I'm not trying to be an @ss, but it's very frustrating for people who actually work in the field to be told how "easy" something is by people who have no idea.The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If technologies like PTC were easy to implement and had large benefits they would have already been developed and implemented. Instead we see speed control technologies only in the easiest use cases, ie passenger and the FEC. The Flordia East Coast case almost proves the opposite. Where conditions allow for the implementation of speed control, railroads WILL install it.
The easiest fine is a speed restriction. If you don't have working PTC your trains can't go faster than 40 MPH. Pick the speed that would get railroads to act.The FRA is against PTC, it's not economically justifiable.
So go ahead, run your system into the safety margins ... and prepare to lose lives, your job and perhaps everything you have ever worked for when your choice becomes "reckless endangerment" in a court of law.That's my point. Right now, today, Railroad crews run things right to the official edge and occasionally dip into the margin. Are people dying? Are the rights of way littered with corpses? No! We have perhaps one major accident every decade that could be stopped by this sort of technology. Is that worth billions of dollars and lower capacity to prevent? The risks of accidents today are completely acceptable. Simple technologies such as continuous cab signals would make things even safer. There is no need for PTC. It is a solution that only benefits those selling the product.
Last edited by Jersey_Mike on Sun Jan 17, 2010 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.