Wabtec has partnered with Septentrio, a Belgian manufacturer of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) equipment, to supply GPS receivers for its GoLINC™ Edge locomotive onboard mobile data center platform, “providing positioning, connectivity and data storage, and enhancing Positive Train Control (PTC) with the adoption of even higher-precision positioning technology.”
The news of the day the other day read “Train Engineer in Fatal 2016 Hoboken Train Crash Wins Back Job with NJT.” The locomotive engineer, Thomas Gallagher, had been dismissed after over-running the end of Track 5 in Hoboken Terminal. The resulting collision damaged the supports for the train shed roof. A woman not on the train but walking on a platform was killed as she was struck by the collapsing structure.
A recently issued arbitration decision directs New Jersey Transit (NJT) to re-employ Thomas Gallagher, the locomotive engineer who in 2016 ran an NJT commuter train into a bumping post and onto the platform at Hoboken Terminal. While the arbitrator found that the engineer “… bore some responsibility for the crash,” she also found that, “… NJ Transit had failed to follow its own procedures for screening engineers in his case.”
RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2019 ISSUE – For rail customers, Precision Scheduled Railroading is a mixed blessing. At a North East Association of Rail Shippers (NEARS) conference earlier this year, PSR’s promises and perils took center stage.
RAILWAY AGE, SEPTEMBER 2019 ISSUE – Aug. 27, 2019 will arguably be one of the single-most important days in North American freight railroading in recent history. On a test track at TTCI (Transportation Technology Center, Inc.) in Pueblo, Colo., with railroad executives and industry officials in attendance and locomotive engineers in the cab, a PTC (Positive Train Control)-compliant, heavy-haul freight train consisting of three EMD high-horsepower road locomotives and 30 loaded cars carrying 4,725 trailing tons started and stopped solely under the command of an on-board computer.
FINANCIAL EDGE, RAILWAY AGE SEPTEMBER 2019 ISSUE: On Aug. 14, the ESPN show ¿Highly Questionable? showed a video clip of a skateboarder sliding underneath a moving passenger locomotive, riding the rail on the skateboard and then sliding back out from underneath the train before the second wheelset (1). (The clip can be seen starting at about 16:30 into the video.) The hosts were suitably shocked and aghast over the audacity of the act of sliding underneath a locomotive and unsurprisingly thoughtless about the carelessness of the rider.
With 16 months left until the Congressionally mandated Dec. 31, 2020 deadline for full implementation of PTC (Positive Train Control), the U.S. railroad industry is drawing close, according to the Federal Railroad Administration’s Second-Quarter 2019 PTC Progress Report.
The U.S. Coast Guard on Sept. 5 issued a FONSI (Finding Of No Significant Impact) on BNSF’s plan to construct a new bridge across Sand Creek and Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, supplementing an existing structure and eliminating a bottleneck.
The 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) required railroads that operate or host passenger trains (commuter/regional and intercity) to install Positive Train Control (PTC). The Commuter Rail Coalition (CRC) points out that, despite PTC requiring radio frequency spectrum for communication, “when commuter railroads needed to acquire spectrum, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) rebuffed requests to recognize the public safety mandate that required it, and told railroads to buy spectrum on the open market.”
We’re celebrating a whole lot this year. We’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, recognizing the right of women to vote. I know a few of us are celebrating the 155th anniversary of Sherman’s March to the Sea, breaking the back of the Slaveholders’ Rebellion.
