Positive Train Control - PTC - is not just for AMTRAK and NE Corridor Commies, you dumb fucks.

[Stinky The Clown]

That oil train rumbling through rural Dumbfuckistanian towns, villages, fearfully armed hamlets, and other enclaves of rugged individualism (spelled: "Fuck You. I got Mine.&quot is a rolling bomb that, even for you, deserves to have emergency control.

Imagine a train loaded with some highly toxic chemical produced in some environmentally unregulated hellhole on its way in a hundred tank cars to some other environmentally unregulated hellhole going through your little piece of Dumbfuckistan. Now imagine the train operator has a medical emergency, or the switch gear on the track is malfunctioning, or some moron drives a truck or school bus full of kids onto the track. Imagine the explosion. Imagine the toxic materials spewing out of the ruptured tanker cars in the middle of your precious Red State town. Imagine the deaths.

PTC could prevent that from happening. PTC was never about AMTRAK, per se. It is about railroads. ALL railroads. Not just those carrying us takers up here in the Commie Northeast from one Commie city to another Commie city. It was about saving lives. Even your ruggedly individual, non-social lives, wherever you live down/out there in the reddest of red states.

Because down/out there in the reddest of red states trains roll too. Trains often laden with the spew of the sorts of dangerous materials produced by Giant Corp, Inc., factories in low tax, low regulation, low government, low security, high individualism, and HIGHLY subsidized from the taxes we Commies pay that your states take. Subsidies that allow you to allow those factories and allow you to not regulate them so they can, indeed, produce Bopal Stew, ready for transport.

As I hear all of you Dumbfuckistanians caterwauling about how this AMTRAK wreck proves how bad rail is, how it only serves a few intellectual elitists in the Commie Northeast, when it happens (as it has, over and over) in your isolated little corner of the planet, you know what? We'll step in - again - to saves your dumb asses from yourselves.

But if you don't want our help, then choke on it.

Motherfuckers.

$50,000 a mile. That's what it will cost. That's what Congress mandated. And that's what YOUR red state lawmaker/clowns failed to fund. As they always do. Cuz, you know, no one wants to pay for shit. Like SAFETY.

Dumbfuckistan. Aptly named, for sure.

[hootinholler]

1. SIGH The Fucks will always be Dumb

It's just the way things work. See?

Smart Fuckers, Dumb Fucks. Proper English FTW.

[RKP5637]

2. Yep! That sums it up quite well about the regions/lands of Idiocracy! n/t

[jwirr]

3. Yes. All communities that have those trains rolling through should be the first to get the PTC since

it can be installed in small sections of the track as the project moves on. This really was negligent on the part of the Rs. Eventually one of those oil trains will derail in a highly populated area and the whole area will go up in flames. It has come very close to that already.

[Brickbat]

4. I'm not clear on what you're saying. You want Congress to give money to private railroads to put PTC

on freight trains? It's mandated on Class I RRs, and they've all said, "Sorry, can't make the deadline. Too expensive. In fact, the fines are cheaper than installation. So we'll pay the fines. And when we run oil trains, we'll run them on short lines we own, which don't fall under the mandate. Your move!"

[tiptonic]

5. Well said.

Very well said Stinky. I wish I was that elegant.

[spanone]

6. k&r...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. A talking point they used on us during the war fits....

Remember when they claimed they were "saving us from ourselves?"

'Cause, ya know. Us peaceniks are all a buncha dummies that forgot 9/11.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. Please post more often, Stinky

Your posts are awesome!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. VERY well done, my dear Stinky!

[cherokeeprogressive]

10. You do know how long it takes to stop a train, right?

Please tell me how PTC prevents this explosion you describe when a vehicle enters the crossing 10 seconds before the train gets to it.

Also, you describe "environmentally unregulated" hellholes. Where would those be?

Man, you hate those of us who live in the west, dontcha?

[mike dub]

12. Great post overall, Stinky, but I caught the same thing, cherokeeprogressive

Re: vehicle enters crossing 10 seconds before train gets to it:
I don't think positive train control guards against grade crossing accidents.

from what I gather, positive train control prompts the engineer (driver?) of the train when the train reaches a place where operator input is needed... A curve a few miles ahead that requires slower speed, or... A switch where a collision with another train could occur.

E.g., train a. is on double track, but is approaching switch where the line goes to single track, and the train a. must stop to wait for train b. To get off of the single track at the switch, and safely pass train a. On double track, going in the opposite direction.

PTC sets off an alarm in the cab of the locomotive as the train approaches the switch or Red Signal light on the side of the track and if engineer does not touch the controls and or close the throttle within the safety margin, automation automatically stops the train before it gets to the switch and goes into the single track and collides head on with train b.

Rachel Maddow talked about it in a segment posted here on DU...in reference to the horrible 2008 head on collision between a commuter train and a freight train outisde L.A. In that case the commuter train engineer was texting and missed a red signal and didn't stop presumably before coming onto a freight train's green single track and they hit head on. Positive train control would have sounded an alarm that texting engineer was approaching an occupied single track, and presumably dumb texter would have stopped texting at the alarm and stopped his train before the intersection. If not, the train would have stopped itself before the crash. Sorry for the long post!

[Not Sure]

11. PTC has nothing to do with highway crossings at grade

If a vehicle tries to beat the train at the crossing and fails, PTC won't do anything an engineer or conductor in the cab wouldn't already do. PTC is concerned with a train's authority to occupy a given portion of track and the maximum speed the train may travel.

Railroads are pretty serious about PTC, apparently because they believe a substantial workforce reduction (and cost savings) may be the result of PTC implementation. PTC equipment is installed on many locomotives, in concert with many signal systems and already many of us have received training on its use.