Petaluma Trolley proposes to establish a historic railway museum in Petaluma California by restoring interurbans of the Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad and operating them on three miles of original P&SR right of way.

To do so requires aquisition of thr right of way from the Northwestern Pacific and we propose a joint trackage arrangement with NWP over about 300 yards of an industrial switching lead operated by NWP. This lead is switched once a day from a passing track located on the NWP main line.

Petaluma Trolley wants to operate over the sitching lead, not the passing siding or main line.

Are there recommended practices for signaling or interlocking in this situation, or can it be done manually? What would be a reasonable rental price for the NWP trackage?

Allen Tacy
Petaluma Trolley

alantacy@neteze.com

> Petaluma Trolley proposes to establish a
> historic railway museum in Petaluma
> California by restoring interurbans of the
> Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad and
> operating them on three miles of original
> P&SR right of way.

> To do so requires aquisition of thr right of
> way from the Northwestern Pacific and we
> propose a joint trackage arrangement with
> NWP over about 300 yards of an industrial
> switching lead operated by NWP. This lead is
> switched once a day from a passing track
> located on the NWP main line.

> Petaluma Trolley wants to operate over the
> sitching lead, not the passing siding or
> main line.

> Are there recommended practices for
> signaling or interlocking in this situation,
> or can it be done manually? What would be a
> reasonable rental price for the NWP
> trackage?

> Allen Tacy
> Petaluma Trolley

Sharing trackage with a common carrier--even just a few hundred feet--may open the door to more FRA regulations than you will care for. It might be better to lay a few hundred feet of track of your own and avoid the issue of both signaling and regs.


Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

Kevin - I've read most of the FRA regs. Seems to me they make a lot of good sense and that a museum would want to follow them even if its trackage were isolated and exempt from those regs. They make good business sense to follow, in my opinion. Doing so helps ensure that visitors receive a quality ride and that potential liabilities are minimized. Of course the historical equipment exemption from the passenger car safety reg is useful, but other than that and such things as FREDs and safety glazing — also exempt — the regs look attractive to me. It is possible to lay our own parallel track to the NWP, but my question is aimed towards exploring the joint operation alternative fully.

Allen
----------------------

> Sharing trackage with a common carrier--even
> just a few hundred feet--may open the door
> to more FRA regulations than you will care
> for. It might be better to lay a few hundred
> feet of track of your own and avoid the
> issue of both signaling and regs.


alantacy@neteze.com

>You may want to explore with the NWP using specific timed windows for your operation, for example, the passenger operation would have exclusive use of the track from 6:00am to 6:00 pm and the NWP would have use of the track from 6:00pm to 6:00 am.It sounds like an inexpensive alternative could be reached since the NWP is only using the track for a small amount of time each week.You will most likely also have to have your crews qualified on the host railroads book of rules.
Good Luck
B. Allan

cvsrkahuna@aol.com

B. Allan - Thanks for the suggestion of an ooperations window. But NWP does their switching in daylight hours when we'll want to use the track too. We need to figure out how to do so, which is the reason for my question.

Allen


alantacy@neteze.com

Before you proceed, you might want to talk to the folks at the new Lackawanna Trolley museum which operates over part of Steamtown. My friends tell me that this was of great concern to the FRA. It was eventually decided that the motorman has to be a licensed engineer and the tracks had to have something called temporal separation.

> Before you proceed, you might want to talk to the folks at the new Lackawanna Trolley
> museum which operates over part of Steamtown. My friends tell me that this was
> of great concern to the FRA. It was eventually decided that the motorman has to
> be a licensed engineer and the tracks had to have something called temporal separation.

A couple of throughts:
Besides the new Lackawanna Trolley. the soon to start up operation of the Los Angeles harbor department using replica trolleys will operate over FRA trackage. I don't know the specifics but it appears that there is an application to get the equipment exempted from some of the FRA regs.

The way I understand the FRA regs to determine an insular (non-regulated) vs regulated railway; if you run parallel within so many feet of a FRA railway you are not insular. Likewise if you are within so many feet of a navigable waterway. If you have a crossing with a public road you come under the FRA.

Brian Norden

bnorden@gateway.net

> Kevin - I've read most of the FRA regs.
> Seems to me they make a lot of good sense
> and that a museum would want to follow them
> even if its trackage were isolated and
> exempt from those regs. They make good
> business sense to follow, in my opinion.
> Doing so helps ensure that visitors receive
> a quality ride and that potential
> liabilities are minimized. Of course the
> historical equipment exemption from the
> passenger car safety reg is useful, but
> other than that and such things as FREDs and
> safety glazing — also exempt — the regs look
> attractive to me. It is possible to lay our
> own parallel track to the NWP, but my
> question is aimed towards exploring the
> joint operation alternative fully.

> Allen
> ----------------------
Sure, most of the FRA regs are good ops procedures--but do you REALLY want to have to do engineer certification, drug testing, etc., etc.? Just because you're a trolley op will NOT exempt you, as I read the regs, if you are sharing trackage.

Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

> A couple of throughts:
> Besides the new Lackawanna Trolley. the soon
> to start up operation of the Los Angeles
> harbor department using replica trolleys
> will operate over FRA trackage. I don't know
> the specifics but it appears that there is
> an application to get the equipment exempted
> from some of the FRA regs.

> The way I understand the FRA regs to
> determine an insular (non-regulated) vs
> regulated railway; if you run parallel
> within so many feet of a FRA railway you are
> not insular. Likewise if you are within so
> many feet of a navigable waterway. If you
> have a crossing with a public road you come
> under the FRA.

> Brian Norden

Temporal separation is generally required whenever dissimilar (i.e. modern freight train and heritage trolley) equipment shares the same trackage on the general system. In-other-words, the freight and passenger operations are effectively rendered seperate and distinct entities by virtue of the fact that they are time-separated. Physical barriers (derails) may also be utilized to ensure that disimilar equipment cannot physically occupy the same track at the same time.

All of this is codified in the recent FTA-FRA joint policy statement on shared use. Scranton and San Pedro are both examples of this policy being applied to a museum / heritage type operation. In both cases, a petition for shared use was filed, along with requests for waivers from certain FRA equipment regulations.

Railway Preservation Resources
jsmatlak@earthlink.net

You might check with the Memphis Trolley people - they share a right of way with Amtrak that includes public grade crossings and a diamond crossing of the Amtrak main.

AMaples@aol.com

> Petaluma Trolley proposes to establish a
> historic railway museum in Petaluma
> California by restoring interurbans of the
> Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad and
> operating them on three miles of original
> P&SR right of way.

> To do so requires aquisition of thr right of
> way from the Northwestern Pacific and we
> propose a joint trackage arrangement with
> NWP over about 300 yards of an industrial
> switching lead operated by NWP. This lead is
> switched once a day from a passing track
> located on the NWP main line.

> Petaluma Trolley wants to operate over the
> sitching lead, not the passing siding or
> main line.

> Are there recommended practices for
> signaling or interlocking in this situation,
> or can it be done manually? What would be a
> reasonable rental price for the NWP
> trackage?

> Allen Tacy
> Petaluma Trolley

To operate trolleys and conventional RR equipment you will need a temporal separation arrangement with the steam RR so the trains and the trolleys do not share track at the same time. Fixed signals need not be part of the package. The Engineers License is not necessary and is not an FRA requirement.

The FRA rules were published in the July 10, 2000 Federal Register at 65 FR 42528–42553 and the joint FRA/FTA policy statement at 65 FR 42525–42528 The Federal Register site is on line at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a000710c.html. Scroll to FRA or FTA then select text or pdf.

If there's room, you may find having a separate track is a better idea than getting into a temporal separation arrangement.

Track safety and other FRA regulations are an entirely different matter.

Electric City Trolley Museum Associ

Kevin - Fair question. I don't know yet.

Allen
--------------------

> Sure, most of the FRA regs are good ops
> procedures--but do you REALLY want to have
> to do engineer certification, drug testing,
> etc., etc.? Just because you're a trolley op
> will NOT exempt you, as I read the regs, if
> you are sharing trackage.


alantacy@neteze.com

To be an "insular" operation, you must: not operate on or within within 30 feet of a railroad which is part of the general system (which NWP is), have no public crossings at grade, nor cross a navigable waterway. There may be something about crossing over a general system RR on a bridge too, but I can't remember.

The FRA and PUC aren't going to tell you to anything you shouldn't really be doing anyway--the paperwork is a headache though.

There are many ways of setting up your operation for non-joint track occupancy which doesn't require any signal system.

If you have a signal system, then there is a lot of testing, certification of signal maintainers, and other paperwork involved with that too.

> Petaluma Trolley proposes to establish a
> historic railway museum in Petaluma
> California by restoring interurbans of the
> Petaluma & Santa Rosa Railroad and
> operating them on three miles of original
> P&SR right of way.

> Allen Tacy
> Petaluma Trolley

Allen,
Good luck in your preservation efforts. Are these original P&SR interurbans? Where have they hiding?

Also, what became of the 3 foot gauge tourist line that started from the northern end of the P&SR line at Forestville? This ambitious volunteer group (aren't we all?) had relaid a mile or so of track and had a speeder or two from the Westside Lumber company. I recall riding the little train in the late 60's/early 70's but it had virtually disappeared when I returned in August 1974.

Ken Middlebrook

middleboofam@earthlink.net

Ken - Yep. P&SR express motor #8 has been rebuilt. We hope to rebuild combinatiion motor #59 if the gods favor us. #59 is in Sebastopol now. Petaluma Trolley will be built on the opposite end of P&SR from the little Green Valley operation in Forestville. We hope to do the overhead, rebuild the trestle on the West Petaluma Branch that skirts the Turning Basin, and install a Phoenix Iron Works wrought iron truss bridge at Cinnabar where the P&SR crossed Petaluma Creek on a trestle parallel to NWP. Motor #63 of course is at Rio Vista and it would take an act of god to pry it loose from them. Other equipment we will have to reconstruct.

The Green Valley in Forestville had a small Plymouth from Hercules Powder and a converted Model A Ford speeder acquired from the West Side along with all the 40 pound rail GV laid. MIMBYs did the operation in in 1971.

Allen
---------------

> Allen,
> Good luck in your preservation efforts. Are
> these original P&SR interurbans? Where
> have they hiding?

> Also, what became of the 3 foot gauge
> tourist line that started from the northern
> end of the P&SR line at Forestville?
> This ambitious volunteer group (aren't we
> all?) had relaid a mile or so of track and
> had a speeder or two from the Westside
> Lumber company. I recall riding the little
> train in the late 60's/early 70's but it had
> virtually disappeared when I returned in
> August 1974.

> Ken Middlebrook


alantacy@neteze.com