Letters - Letter to the Editor

Railway Age, Nov, 2001

PTC: Lipstick on a pig?

Berlin, N. J.

To the editor:

Re: "Lipstick on a pig?" (BA Sept., p. 6): Positive train control is a tool to be mastered by train dispatchers. It is not a function that will run the railroad but, rather, run the railroad better. Train performance can only be predicted when proper power is assigned to the trains to be moved. Not all trains require the same amount of power, but all trains require a standard power base. Horsepower per ton at the desired speed must be provided to produce the results that provide for dependable, therefore predictable, transit time.

The ability to provide a real-time basis for train operation has improved ontime operation. A "drag in the hole" does much more than delay itself. It reduces the capacity of the line as the distance of single track between meeting points is increased. Your item says, "The running time performance of drag freights is inherently unpredictable... a loss of power in a drag freight climbing hills or in undulating territory will create a lot more lost time than in a train with more power." Really. It is also true that a dark room is a much more difficult place to find one's way than a lighted room. If trains are dispatched on the basis of power needed to move the train so that it will be able to meet a schedule, based on horsepower per ton at a given maximum speed, its movement can be predicted. Power failures are a mechanical department responsibility over which a dispatcher has no control. Power assignment must provide for movement over whatever type territory the train will operate.

All trains should be properly powered [for operation] over a railroad designed to provide for the movement of the traffic it handles. The inability of trains to maintain predictable running times is as much a result of lines poorly designed to handle the traffic as any other matter. There is no mention of this in your item. You have written of Hamlet and left Hamlet out of the narrative.

Train dispatching is a function that few people understand. Dispatchers work for supervisors who answer for what the dispatcher does. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand why drag freights "go in the hole" rather than delay some other trains. Trains must be powered for the performance required to meet specific running times. This may well require maximum performance over certain portions of the line.

PTC won't do as much good as possible unless transit time becomes predictable. Unless the design of the line is properly configured to accommodate the traffic volume offered and until trains are properly powered, as you state, the installation of PTC will indeed be "lipstick on a pig."

John F. O'Connor

Retired train dispatcher and former STB consultant