Positive train control extension? Unlikely

[schlimm]

"ochlos" = the masses. a crowd that is disorganized, i.e., a mob.

"laos" = a crowd. a collective of people that is gathered around some commonality, much akin to citizens

[Wizlish]

"ochlos" is not so much 'disorganized' as it is 'every man for himself' -- making each man easy prey for demagogues, unenlightened self-interest, etc.

"laos" is a small country in the Indochinese region ... no, it's just as you say, an assembly of people marked by some common interest or identifiable characteristic, probably one with which they primarily self-identify.  (This is the Greek word for 'people' in the expression 'chosen people of God').

No question which of the two will be more 'proof' against the wrong sort of community organizing!

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I like the H. L. Mencken excerpts posted by wanswheel above better . . . - especially the railroad-related ones.  Thanks ! 

- Paul North. 

[wanswheel]

 

Turntable Times, the official newsletter of the Roanoke chapter, National Railway Historical Society, Inc., June 2001

Book Review by John Austen

 

The Railroad Passenger Car: An Illustrated History of the First Hundred Years, with Accounts by Contemporary Passengers, by August Mencken.

 

The Johns Hopkins University Press

 

This is a reprint of the first book devoted exclusively to the development and experience of passenger train travel, originally released in 1957. The author is the brother of the renowned Baltimore editor H. L. Mencken.

 

Part I is presented in nine chapters which discuss the experience of passenger train travel (and its development during the first 100 years of the railroad age), addressing accommodations, safety and comfort, cost, and passenger reactions. This was the first thorough study of the subject, benefiting from much solid research in the patent office. John White's The American Railroad Passenger Car (1978, Johns Hopkins) grew logically from Mencken's work. White valued this book especially for Part II, which consists of excerpts of narratives from passengers recounting their travel experiences. There is something for everyone here, juxtaposing the peculiarities of the new mode of travel with revealing social commentaries. We see people adapting to change, and people just being people. We are told of a passenger who slept with his feet hanging out the window, waking to find that some roadside station humorist, unable to resist the temptation, had covered them with tar.

 

The 79 black and white illustrations appearing throughout the book include photographs, engravings, and line drawings (many of the latter being from patent claims). Reproduction is adequate as an accompaniment to the text. Although the subtitle calls this an illustrated history, the real strength of the book is in the text; better and more comprehensive illustrations are available elsewhere. A comprehensive 17-page index is provided.

 

The new introduction to this edition, by Courtney B. Wilson, points out that "As a writer August Mencken will always remain in the shadow of his brother." This is perhaps the literary equivalent of saying without sarcasm that a particular scientist is not quite as smart as Einstein. Such a statement is actually a high complement! This pioneering book about passenger cars and travel shows that August Mencken benefited from sharing many of the genes (or the environment) that graced H. L. Mencken the editor. The book is a well-written classic: an insightful analysis of the development of passenger cars and the travel experience. The thoughtful selection of narratives reflects the humor as well as the solid scholarship you would expect of a Mencken.

 

 

Excerpt from August Mencken’s book (excerpt from a 19^th century book)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Railroad-Passenger-Car-Contemporary/dp/0801865417

In America the railroad seems to be considered a public highway on which the company has the right of toll. When you enter a station you see no porters from whom to make an inquiry, nor is there any one person whose business it is to find you a seat. There is no one whose duty it is to prevent you from breaking your neck by getting in when the train is in motion. You must find out your train and take your place as best you can. The conductor usually cries “All Aboard” when the train is about to start, but sometimes when it is ready it silently moves off.

 

At Albany we changed trains for Niagara and I made my first acquaintance with the sleeping-car. The sleeping-car is in the day time like any other car but by a number of ingenious contrivances its transformation is effected in a very short time, as when the train stops for supper. Each pair of seats makes up into one bed, so that a person when lying takes up just the same room as four persons sitting. Then, by means of various supports and appliances attached to the sides of the car, a second tier of beds is arranged above the first. Sometimes there is a third tier but this is not the general rule and crowds the car to an uncomfortable extent. In some cases there are berths completely partitioned off, so that ladies may regularly go to bed as they like in all privacy. At each end there is generally a stove and also a place for washing in the morning.

 

Travelers have sometimes complained of unpleasant closeness in these cars but inasmuch as they generally contain only one half and in no case more than three-fourths of the ordinary number of passengers and as the means of ventilation are at least equal to those in the other cars. These cars are not generally run by the railroad companies themselves but are the property of private individuals or of companies. You pay your ordinary fare to the railroad company and when you get into the sleeping-car you pay the additional charge, generally not more than fifty cents, to the person appointed to receive it.

 

The most uncomfortable part of the proceedings I found to be getting up in the morning, while the car was being transformed into its former state, and the occupants were crowded into the narrow passageway in the middle.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

From the above excerpt:

"John White's The American Railroad Passenger Car (1978, Johns Hopkins) grew logically from Mencken's work. White valued this book especially for Part II, which consists of excerpts of narratives from passengers recounting their travel experiences."

John H. White, Jr. using this book as a source or basis for his work is about the highest scholarly praise there can be in a railroad context. 

Mike, thanks once again for sharing with us the results of your skilled research !   

- Paul North. 

[MidlandMike]

Wizlish

... -- as expressed in another great Menckenism, 'you'll never go broke underestimating the taste of the American people'. 

...

 

This sounds like a quote from P.T.Barnum, of circus fame:

“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.”

Barnum preceded Mencken by many years, and I suspect HLM was paraphrasing the quote to adapt it to his topic.

[wanswheel]

Thanks Paul.

One more article, the context of ‘underestimating the intelligence.’

Notes on Journalism by H. L. Mencken

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1926/09/19/page/87/

The general success of the tabloid papers, the oldest of which is only seven years old, still seems to puzzle the majority of newspaper men. When they admit it at all, they commonly credit it to the looseness and imbecility of the newcomers, which are described as given over wholly to crime and scandal. But this is plainly a prejudiced and highly inaccurate view of them. In the whole country there are not more than three that actually specialize in such matters. The rest, at worst, are no worse than the usual run of yellows. And at best they are fiery good newspapers, intelligently edited and carefully printed.

What makes them popular, I believe, is far less their contents than their form. They are made for reading in crowds, and it is in crowds that they are mainly read. A great advertising boom now rages in the United States, and all the old line papers run to an immense bulkiness. Some of the more prosperous of them, on the days that advertisers favor, come out in two or three sections and weigh a pound or more. To go through such a paper in a jammed street car is quite impossible. The man who attempts it gets a beating for his pains. But he can manage a tabloid without making his neighbors yell, and so he reads it.

The lightness of the little papers gives them another advantage: they can be distributed much more quickly than the larger. A boy on a motorcycle can carry a hundred copies of even the bulkiest of them to a remote junction in ten or twenty minutes, but the old style papers have to go by truck, which is slower. Not so many can be printed in an hour. Not so many can be carried by a single newsboy. These advantages count up. The majority of readers, when there is news afloat that interests them seriously, look for it in the larger papers, which can give it in full. But these same readers also buy the tabloids for the first bulletins. Thus there is much duplication of circulation. The tabloids take a certain amount of circulation away from the larger papers, but not enough to be disastrous.

They would be even more successful than they are, I believe, if their editors could resist the temptation to improve them. That temptation, of course, is easy to understand. Every newspaper man worthy of the name dreams of making his paper better than it is, and those who run the tabloids are stimulated further by the general professional opinion that their papers are somehow low. So every tabloid, as soon as it gets into safe waters, begins to grow intellectual. The bald, gaudy devices that launched it are abandoned and it takes on decorum. Already there are tabloids with opinions on the French debt, the Philippine question, and the music of Stravinsky. I know at least two that are actually liberal.

This, I fear, is a false form of progress. The tabloid, so lifted by its boot straps, becomes simply a little newspaper, and it must inevitably be inferior to the big ones. If I were a tabloid magnate I'd head in the other direction. That is to say, I'd try to produce a paper interesting and instructive to the uncounted thousands who read no newspaper at all. That such persons exist may seem incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact. They swarm in every large American city. They include the vast class of illiterates, which is everywhere larger than the statistics show. And they include the even larger class of near-illiterates—that is, those who are able to spell out enough words to get them through the ordinary business of life, but find reading so laborious and painful that they avoid it as much as possible.

Many of them, as the psychologist, Dr. Eleanor Wembridge, has demonstrated, are congenitally incapable of mastering it. They understand only such words as are comprehensible to a child of, say, ten. The rest is simply a fog to them. An ordinary newspaper article, even in a tabloid, is thus mainly unintelligible to them. Half the words in it are beyond them. Even when, by dint of hard sweating, they spell their way through it, the impression it leaves upon them is very vague and unsatisfactory. They may grasp its main propositions, but all its details are lost upon them.

It is my belief that a newspaper aimed at such readers would make a great success in any large American city, and especially in Chicago or New York. It should be printed throughout, as First Readers are printed, in words of one syllable. It should avoid every idea that is beyond the understanding of a boy of ten. It should print no news about anything that morons are not interested in. And its illustrations, instead of being mere decorations, should really illustrate, as the pictures in a First Reader illustrate.

I don't think it would be difficult to get together a staff for such a paper. If journalism itself failed to produce the necessary talent, recourse might be had to pedagogy. There are schoolma’ams, male and female, all over this great land who are professionally adept at explaining things to children. They have perfected technical devices that do the trick quickly and effectively, and those devices could be adapted to journalism without the slightest difficulty. Journalists themselves, after a little training, would greatly improve them, for journalists as a class are much more intelligent than pedagogues. In the end there would be a new English (or American) for the submerged, and reading would spread to a vast class that now gets all its news by listening.

To that class, as to children, much of what now passes for news, and is dished up in endless columns every morning, is wholly uninteresting. Its members, despite the alarms of bank directors and other such naive fellows, are not Socialists: they are, indeed, quite incapable of comprehending politics save as a combat between two men, A and B. In the strict sense, all ideas are beyond them. They can grasp only events. Are they interested only in crime? I don't think so. What they are interested in is drama. The thing presented to them must take the form of a combat, and it must be a very simple combat, with one side clearly right and the other clearly wrong. They can no more imagine neutrality than they can imagine the fourth dimension. And when they see drama they want to see it moving.

Soon or late some sagacious journalist will set up a paper made to the tastes and limitations of this immense horde of God's children, and his rewards will descend upon him like a deluge. The earliest movie magnates tapped that colossal till with great skill, and so lifted the movies to the third (or is it second?) place among the country's industries. They did not start out with Balzac, Joseph Conrad, and Dostoieveski; they started out with "The Perils of Pauline" and of serials out of the Fireside Companlon.

But once they got rich, they began to develop, in the immemorial human way, a yearning to be respectable, and even intellectual. That is, they began to turn their backs upon their original clients, who had poured all their wealth into their coffers, and to reach out for customers of a higher sophistication. Thus, the 10 cent movie house passed into the shadows and in its place appeared the blazing hell showing pictures at $2—pictures full of artistic and even literary pretension. Fortunately for the movie magnates, this pretension was mainly buncombe. They lacked the skill and culture necessary to make the movies genuinely intelligent, and so they escaped bankruptcy. But even so, they converted a business whose profits were as certain as those of a bootlegger into a business full of hazards and calamities.

They will come to a safe harbor again when they return to the Fireside Companion level. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has any one ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it’s assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly. They dislike ideas, for ideas make them uncomfortable. The tabloids, seeking to force such things upon them, will inevitably alarm them and lose their trade. The journalism of the future—that is, the mob journalism—will move in the direction that I have indicated.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Mencken was a good writer although he reads like a less bombastic Lucius Beebe.  His smug elitism is almost offensive, though.

[wanswheel]

Buslist

The Senate just passed a long term Transportation bill that includes a rollback of the PTC deadline to 2018. Now let's see what the house does.

 

 

On topic, for the heck of it. The Senate bill which passed says (on page 790)

 

https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr22/BILLS-114hr22eas.pdf  

 

‘‘(7) CONSTRAINT.—Each updated plan shall reflect that the railroad carrier or other entity subject to paragraph (1) will, not later than December 31, 2018

(A) complete component installation and spectrum acquisition; and,

(B) activate its positive train control system without undue delay.’’

 

Excerpt from NY Times, Aug. 7

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/us/most-railroads-wont-meet-deadline-for-safety-controls-report-says.html

The majority of freight railroads and passenger trains will not be able to meet a year-end deadline to install technology that prevents trains from exceeding speed limits and helps avoid collisions, the Federal Railroad Administration said Friday in a report to Congress...

The largest railroads will have only 39 percent of their trains fitted with the technology by the end of the year, the report said. In addition, just 34 percent of the employees who need to be trained on the equipment will be ready by Dec. 31.

The report also said that just 29 percent of commuter railroads were expected to complete installation of the safety equipment by the end of 2015. Full implementation of the technology for all commuter lines is projected by 2020, five years after the deadline, according to the railroad administration.

[blue streak 1]

We will not know what Congress will do to enact an extension or not even on Dec 31st.

[schlimm]

blue streak 1

We will not know what Congress will do to enact an extension or not even on Dec 31st.

 

Whether Congress does anything or (likely) not, it appears that an extension will be a fait accompli by non-compliance, presumably with any penalty.

[ndbprr]

8/10/15 wall street journal say's most railroads will not meet the deadline. 23% of commuter lines will. Others will face hefty fines.

[BaltACD]

PTC - Perpetual Tort Competition

 

Let the games begin!

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

On the PTC deadline, etc., see this recent pointed column/ blog by David Schanoes:

"Position Available: Seeking Cynical, Jaded, not necessarily New Yorker" ("Find a way.")

http://ten90solutions.com/position_available_seeking_cynical_jaded_not_necessarily_new_yorker

- PDN. 

[blue streak 1]

[quote user="Paul_D_North_Jr"]

http://ten90solutions.com/position_available_seeking_cynical_jaded_not_necessarily_new_yorker

- PDN. 

So the Class 1s jointly own a company that owns the 220 spectrum ?  Very interesting.  That will  get us posters started.

 

[Buslist]

[quote user="blue streak 1"]

Paul_D_North_Jr

http://ten90solutions.com/position_available_seeking_cynical_jaded_not_necessarily_new_yorker

- PDN. 

So the Class 1s jointly own a company that owns the 220 spectrum ?  Very interesting.  That will  get us posters started.

 

 

 

its been mentioned in posts several times before. PTC 220 LLC was created by the  class 1s to acquire spectrum for PTC jointly rather than each railroad acquiring their own band width. And David is WRONG 220 LLC didn't get going until after the PTC mandate. The original intent was to use voice and data on the 160 frequencies until the radio developed said it couldn't be done in time. The big discussion between LA and 220 LLC was to get 220 to acquire spectrum for Metrolink's use (I was close to this process so I know a bit about it).

[schlimm]

Buslist

And David is WRONG 220 LLC didn't get going until after the PTC mandate.

You appear to have the sequence wrong.  220 LLC was started in late 2007 by NS and UP, and ownership by other rails followed; the AAR-endorsed PTC mandate (US Rail Safety Improvement Act) passed Congress and was signed Oct.16, 2008.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2013_Train-Control_FRM_Panel2e-Schnautz.pdf

[Buslist]

schlimm

 

 

Buslist

And David is WRONG 220 LLC didn't get going until after the PTC mandate.

 

 

You appear to have the sequence wrong.  220 LLC was started in late 2007 by NS and UP, and ownership by other rails followed; the AAR-endorsed PTC mandate (US Rail Safety Improvement Act) passed Congress and was signed Oct.16, 2008.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2013_Train-Control_FRM_Panel2e-Schnautz.pdf

 

as an industry wide effort it's post the PTC mandate, and note in Tom's PowerPoint it was acquired to support PTC not other business objectives as David claims.

 

here's a direct quote from an informed and close to the action source (shades of Roger Ford if you read Modern Railways)

"Metrolink wasn't talking about PTC220 spectrum ... their rep was talking about spectrum I helped Metrolink find from a private source ... and that deal still is not done, contrary to Dave's claim. Fortunately, PTC220 came to the rescue in the mean time. The spectrum LIRR and MNR were able to get in certain areas is simply not available on other parts of MNR. And until all the recent attention of Philly, FCC was unwilling to help with PTC. Now they've gotten very helpful all of a sudden and the NEC spectrum problem is on it's way to being solved. We ... are planning out the use of PTC220 spectrum, and to date, it has been for nothing other than PTC. That may change in the future, but not so far."

[schlimm]

Say whatever you want ("WRONG 220 LLC didn't get going until after the PTC mandate")., but 2008 (the mandate of RSIA) came after 2007 (220 LLC's founding), in any world by about 11 months.

[Buslist]

schlimm

Say whatever you want ("WRONG 220 LLC didn't get going until after the PTC mandate")., but 2008 (the mandate of RSIA) came after 2007 (220 LLC's founding), in any world by about 11 months.

 

sorry but it wasn't an industry wide initiative until after the the confessional mandate. Dave's implication that the spectrom was held hostage for this requirement is just wrong, sorry you seem to be supporting it! I 

[schlimm]

Buslist

sorry but it wasn't an industry wide initiative until after the the confessional mandate. Dave's implication that the spectrom was held hostage for this requirement is just wrong, sorry you seem to be supporting it! I 

Yes, and that only shows that some railroads are more advanced than others as well as the necessity for a mandate so that one system is adopted nationally.  The same was true of other safety appliances in the past.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Next installment on this by David Schanoes: "Controversy?" dated Aug. 13, 2015, at:

http://ten90solutions.com/controversy 

It covers several topics related to PTC, which are beyond my ability to summarize them concisely tonight - you'll just have to go and read the column yourself.

- Paul North. 

[radio ranch]

I don't want to get into a rabid political name calling contest here.  However, if you were to insert Democrat or Republican into your sentences where you said GOP, the results would be the same.

Open your mind to the real world in Washington and don't be a pawn to either party.

 

[radio ranch]

I don't want to get into a rabid political name calling contest here. However, if you were to insert Democrat or Republican into your sentences where you said GOP, the results would be the same. Open your mind to the real world in Washington and don't be a pawn to either party.

[schlimm]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Next installment on this by David Schanoes: "Controversy?" dated Aug. 13, 2015, at:

http://ten90solutions.com/controversy 

It covers several topics related to PTC, which are beyond my ability to summarize them concisely tonight - you'll just have to go and read the column yourself.

- Paul North. 

 

I'll quote his main points:

The essential point is that Congress defined PTC by functionality  not technology.  The railroads opted for wireless data transmission, GPS, track databases, algorithmic based braking curves for satisfying these functional requirements. That decision took into account the already existing "ownership" of the 220 spectrum by UP and NS. 

 But again, that decision by the railroads as to achieving compliance was acommercial decision by the railroads, not a public safety decision. So I think it's a bit of a stretch to accuse Congress or FCC of dereliction of duty by not providing, free of charge, radio spectrum to the railroads.  Spectrum is, after all, a national resource.

If you ask me, and most of the time nobody is, I think commuter railroads should have "broken from the pack" with the Class 1s and not opted for the GPS, wireless data radio, WIU, GPS, BOS  type system.  

I think the commuter agencies should have made use of existing track circuits; should have made use of existing cab signaling technology; should have enhanced automatic speed control technology to meet the functionality requirements for PTC. 

The Class 1s opted for the wireless data radio/GPS/BOS/OBC system because approximately 40 percent of their trackage is dark territory-- without track circuits, without automatic block signals, without remote control and protection of mainline switches.  Automatic enforcement is impossible under these conditions because occupancy cannot and is not determined in the field. 

So we have to accept where we are, and deal with it.  We have to push out the date. There is no point pretending we don't, or demanding fines, or "heads."   We have to require railroads to indeed layout how PTC will be installed in a)passenger service areas b)areas of high risk.  We have to provide FRA with the resources to oversee the implementation-- the supervision of this project. 

We do not have to blame the Congress for taking an action in the interests of public safety.  We donot have to pretend that business interests did not inform the practical decisions regarding implementation strategies and technologies. 

This is the world we live in.  No whimpering. 

[GERALD L MCFARLANE JR]

There's one very important(okay, maybe 2) that most people are overlooking, as the PTC deadline is Jan 1, 2016...aka New Years Day, most if not all freight traffic has already been halted en route.  Everyone is hung over from celebrating the night before, and our Federal government would have roughly 48 hours to inact a PTC extension before freight traffic would start backing up...and then it would be a negligible amount as there's always a precipitice drop in volume around the New Year.  So it's conceivable that the RR's would get their extension without any potential FRA fines every being discussed.

[Euclid]

Quote from David Schanoes blog:

 

“So we have to accept where we are, and deal with it.  We have to push out the date. There is no point pretending we don't, or demanding fines, or "heads."   We have to require railroads to indeed layout how PTC will be installed in a) passenger service areas b) areas of high risk.  We have to provide FRA with the resources to oversee the implementation—the supervision of this project.

 

We do not have to blame the Congress for taking an action in the interests of public safety.  We do not have to pretend that business interests did not inform the practical decisions regarding implementation strategies and technologies.

 

This is the world we live in.  No whimpering. 

 

August 13, 2015”

 

I find this quote from Schanoes to be extremely unclear, and about the poorest piece of writing that I have ever seen.  Who is he talking to?  Who is “we”?  It seems like it is the railroad industry, but if so, how does the industry “push out the date,” as he says.  Only Congress can push out the date.  Who is the “We” that has to “provide FRA with the resources to oversee the implementation—the supervision of this project,” as Schanoes says?

 

When he says “we have to accept where we are and deal with it,” and admonishes “No whimpering,” is he referring to Congress and “We the people,” or is he referring to the railroad industry?

 

Apparently, “dealing with it” means to extend the deadline.  He seems to conclude that an extension is justified, but I do not see anything in his writing that clearly explains why it is justified. 

[dehusman]

GERALD L MCFARLANE JR

There's one very important(okay, maybe 2) that most people are overlooking, as the PTC deadline is Jan 1, 2016...aka New Years Day, most if not all freight traffic has already been halted en route.

Not so much.  They might run about half the number trains, but that can still be over a thousand trains on one class one (plus switch engines and passenger trains).  Most roads will run coal, grain, intermodal and automotive if they have crews.  If there isn't an extension by Christmas, then the railroads will pretty much have their plans in place and if it impacts operations, they will be implementing the plan the last several days of December to be in place on Jan 1.

While the government may wait til Jan 2 to start figuring out what to do, the railroads being real businesses with real planning processes will already be well into whatever actions they have decided to take.  I wouldn't be suprised if they haven't had teams formulating options and the steps to implement the various options working on this for months.  Most likely this will not be a suprise, if the railroads do anything that affects operations they will be notifying customers (including passenger operations) and the government what the plans are well in advance.

[Euclid]

What exactly is the point of reducing operations after the deadline?  Does doing so take a railroad out of non-compliance with the PTC mandate?

[caldreamer]

I do not think that anything like stopping all trains will occur.  As we said when I worked for the governemt "PUNT", in other words the government will tell the railroads to just run their trains slower (e.g. maximum speed 40 MPH).  Any stopping of the railroads running would be desatersous to the US economy.  An extention MUST be made to the PTC deadline due to the technicla issues involved.