NCTD PTC RSD under way
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has authorized initiation of Revenue Service Demonstration (RSD) operations for Positive Train Control (PTC) on North County Transit District (NCTD) Coaster trains, including revenue (passenger-carrying) trains, on the San Diego subdivision.
“RSD is an important step in implementation of PTC as it allows NCTD to collect and validate data on the performance of our PTC system,” NCTD said. “This testing supports the PTC Safety Plan that NCTD anticipates submitting to the FRA in September 2017.”
NCTD’s PTC system has been tested for several months on a non-revenue train in the Stuart Mesa Rail facility and along the Coastal Corridor. This testing” was aimed at developing and enhancing the PTC infrastructure while troubleshooting any potential challenges prior to moving to RSD,” the agency said.
NCTD informed Coaster riders that “Despite robust testing, during this period of RSD, Coaster passengers may experience delays at origin locations (Oceanside Transit Center or Santa Fe Depot) when trains are initializing the system. The trains could also come to a brief stop based on PTC automatically applying the brakes. While there are challenges to implementing any new technology, the long-term benefits of having PTC is increased safety on the rail. NCTD, its rail partners, and its contractors will continue to work diligently to minimize the impacts of PTC implementation on customers.”
“Safety is NCTD’s top priority,” said Deputy Chief Operations Officer of Rail Systems Eric Roe. “Implementing a system as complex as this does not happen overnight. But with that complexity comes a great leap forward in rail safety.”
