There is still hope for repeal, the technology still largely doesn't exist - at least, not in anything resembling an economically viable manner - and everybody is behind as a result.
Come 2017, expect it to go bye-bye, along with a lot of other very bad law.

CD

I tried to make a quick list of heritage rail operations which will potentially be subject to PTC.

UP's steam fleet, SP 4449, SP&S 700, and AT&SF 3751 all seem to fit the bill. And when they become operational, AT&SF 2926, N&W 611, and Alaska Railroad 557. Do Steamtown or CSRM have operations that are affected? Who else? Have any of them made any progress in resolving the problem?

I can speak for ARR 557. We see it as a potential challenge, but have a lot more questions than answers.

So, after the railroads have spent almost billions on PTC, they're going to be fine with the FRA getting rid of it?!?

Norfolk Southern just recently completed the PTC project for the CNO&TP. I don't see them turning back now.

To the person who replied to me via PM - I wasn't able to respond to you through RYPN. I've changed my preferences to allow email responses. Please send me a note via that route. Thanks.

For any of you who are counting on PTC going away entirely, I have a bit of insider advice:

Don't count on it disappearing.

It's here to stay, subject to some minor changes and timetable shifts.

The technology for an advanced, precise position monitoring and management of trains is a known, stock item on the shelf here (that is, ERTMS). So if "PTC" is not the solution, the solution is not going to be "do nothing", the solution will be picking another technology. And preservation operations will still have to consider installing some new system in their motive power.

The discussions against PTC typicall fall into one of two categories: a) it is not feasible and not cost effective, so we should do nothing, and b) we need something, but PTC is the wrong technology.

For camp (b), so much has already been invested in PTC, that whatever complaints there are are cheaper to fix by modifying PTC than starting over.

Camp (a) is in denial. It is just a statistical matter of time until the next high publicity train crash due to signal override or "SPAD", and then everyone who has been against PTC will be pointing fingers at someone else and explaining how it is not their fault that better train controls are not in place.

I teach a course in railway management here in Denmark, to a European audience. We have a day on signals, and we study the BN ARES decision of the 1980's. My students are stunned when I document that head on collisions are still an annual occurrence in North America. A head on collision between two trains on open track is just inconceivable here.

The railroads haven't spend billions, the companies hoping to profit have - along with a lot of government grant money. The RRs are still trying to make the mandate go away - not the technology, just the mandate. It's bad law shoved forth by a bad senator in reaction to a bad wreck.

CD

Meanwhile PTC has already gone live between Porter and Kalamazoo and I presume heading east, as the state's aspiration for the entire Michigan Central is to have 110mph operation at the least possible cost.

So, what's all this PTC equipment doing on the NS mainline? They've got it all installed and ready to switch over.

So, they want to do it, they just don't want to be told to do it?

Y'all just aren't getting it. PTC may be a great idea on the NEC and other high-traffic trunk lines, but it is cost-prohibitive on the vast majority of Class I lines - especially in the West. Per-locomotive costs were estimated at over $100K per unit for initial installation, and 20-year total cost was well over $20,000,000,000 - well above the estimated return.
If PTC was actually useful, and economically viable, the RRs would install the system on their own - there would be no need for a mandate.
The United States had the best passenger trains in the world in the 1930s and 1940s, and a prior unnecessary 'safety' mandate destroyed that. Today, we have the best freight system - will another unnecessary 'safety' mandate destroy that?

CD

We also had the best freight transportation industry in the world prior to the introduction of the knuckle coupler too.

Well, unless you asked all those guys missing fingers and hands...

I thought it was the automobile and better roads that destroyed the passenger train. What unnecessary safety mandate contributed to that? No sarcasm here, I'd like to know.

-Mark

The requirement that any passenger train doing 80 MPH or more must have cab signals, this requirement forced 95% +/- of the passenger trains in the USA to reduce their speed to 79 MPH max.

This really hurt the western trains, not enough density for cab signals, and a long distance to travel.

Amtrak lives with this requirement to this day.

-Hudson

In response to Dick Morris' note of March 31, the August 10, 2014 "final rule" isn't the only "final rule" FRA has issued on PTC. The primary PTC rule is the "final rule" published on January 15, 2010. This is the rule that specifically discusses tourist railroads and tourist rail operations (both in the text of the rule itself and in the explanatory preamble that precedes the rule text). It's available at the following web address:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/E9-31362.pdf

See pp. 2635 (preamble discussion of tourist operations), 2700 (sec 236.1003 - "main line" definition), 2704 (sec 236.1006(b)(4)) and 2712 (sec 236.1029(b)) for discussion and provisions applicable to tourist roads

The August 10, 2014 "final rule" mentioned in Dick's note doesn't replace the 2010 rule - it just amends some parts of it. The 2014 "final rule" doesn't specifically discuss tourist roads, but the amendments it makes to 236.1029 for non-equipped moves on PTC trackage would apply to non-equipped mainline excursions..

The PTC rule, as it now stands, won't affect typical tourist roads that operate on their own tracks or on tracks of a shortline freight road (unless the freight road handles freight traffic requiring PTC). But it will affect mainline excursion operations over PTC equipped rail lines. In these cases, the excursion train will either have to be equipped for PTC, or operated under the rules applicable to operation of trains with failed PTC apparatus (sec 236.1029). There's also a 20 mile limitation for non-equipped moves on PTC trackage (sec 236.1006(b)(4)(iii)) which becomes effective in 2020 and appears to be applicable to non-equipped excursion moves.

Finally, Dick is right that Federal Register publications of rules can be difficult to follow, because they usually only show the new or changed provisions. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), that's not the case with the 2010 final rule. Since virtually the entire rule was "new" in 2010, the major provisions are all in the rulemaking document itself.

Hope this helps shed a little light where there is now but darkness.