The Friends of the 261 will operate a steam excursion from Minneapolis to Duluth, Minn. on June 9-10, 2018 to raise funds for the installation of the Positive Train Control (PTC) safety system on Milwaukee Road steam locomotive No. 261. The federal government has mandated PTC be installed on locomotives by December 2018.

Please point me to the exact section of 49 CFR that mandates installation of PTC on historic steam locomotives. (It might not be in part 230)

NOT in any way that I don't support the idea of using PTC on any mainline excursion, and NOT that I won't be supporting both the funding and the design of the equipment to the greatest extent I can. Just that I don't think stampeding people with an impending deadline that might not apply to 261 is the best semantics.

There has been a lot of discussion lately on this. I think the answer from the FRA is tentatively that they will wait and see? There was something they issued on this a few weeks ago?

The real questions are: What part of the FRA regs exempts steam (and other heritage) locomotives on lines that otherwise are mandated to have PTC?

What if the host railroad requires it, regardless of what the FRA mandates?

That is not, actually, the magic question, which is "what if the excursion insurer requires it, regardless of what the FRA or the host railroad require"?

And I frankly cannot imagine an insurer NOT having this requirement (albeit satisfying it with PTC on a trailing unit with 'telemetry' offset to its position reading to correspond with the steam head end) unless there is continued specific exemption in 49 CFR 230 for excursion steam. Which is why I want someone to point to a specific provision that lessens or eliminates the exemption on certain types of mainline running.

I was frankly surprised that FRA in the Sarah years did not jump on this. Perhaps I judged them unfairly.

[quote="Overmod"]Please point me to the exact section of 49 CFR that mandates installation of PTC on historic steam locomotives. (It might not be in part 230)

quote]


Part 236 would be where all of the wonders of PTC live in 49 CFR. There currently aren't any exemptions for historic equipment or equipment type. However there are rules in place for allowing equipment without PTC installed to operate. These rules, as I understand them, would be essentially giving full authority the track which would probably be an operational hindrance to many class 1 railroads.