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[CNJRoss]

Philly.com, 5/25:

 Cost of radio spectrum an obstacle to Postive Train Control

 

WASHINGTON - After a 2008 train collision killed 25 people in California, Congress mandated new safety measures to prevent more high-speed disasters.

 

But the goal was met with an invisible obstacle: radio spectrum.

 

Licenses to the airwaves - used for everything from TV to police scanners to space exploration - are critical to the new system, Positive Train Control. But Amtrak and most other passenger rail agencies floundered for years while trying to acquire those licenses, leaving them short of the bandwidth needed to use the new safety systems.

 

SNIP

 

Passenger rail lines have blamed Congress for failing to set aside the radio spectrum they needed. Congress blamed the Federal Communications Commission. And the FCC said its hands were tied by lawmakers' inaction.

 

More here.

[CNJRoss]

Metro Magazine "Transit Dispatches," 7/22:
 

 

Challenges of Positive Train Control Implementation

 

The derailment of Amtrak #188 opened an intense national public dialogue on rail safety and Positive Train Control (PTC): What is PTC? Would it have prevented the Amtrak accident? What are rail systems doing to make their networks safe? Will the December 31, 2015 deadline be met?

 

While PTC may have just recently entered the consciousness of the public at-large, it has been an issue for freight and commuter rail systems since Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) (P.L. 110-432) in 2008 following the collision between a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles. Since that time, rail organizations have been working toward meeting the federally-mandated PTC implementation deadline of December 31, 2015. With less than six months to go, several commuter rail systems have said that, not only will they not meet the deadline, they will need several more years before having full PTC implementation on their trains.

 

RELATED: [Video] Sen. Barbara Boxer discusses benefits of PTC

 

Continue here.

[jis]

Well, Senator Schumer was fighting hard to possibly exempt LIRR and MNRR from doing PTC until the reality of the Spuyten Duyvil derailment derailed his plans. He changed his stance overnight. If instead of political posturing he had been working on getting funding for MTA, which he ultimately did, they'd probably have PTC by the deadline.

Edited by jis, 23 July 2015 - 08:54 AM.