The two MAJOR offenses in railroad - Operating past a STOP signal. Having your train outside the area upon which it has been granted Authority to operate.

YOU may view releasing track warrant territory in error as a minor infraction. Railroad view it as among the most major of infractions. It is the kind of rules failure that can get people killed.

Ross,

This works on the Union Pacific because the UP also owns the steam locomotive. LEAP PTC will continue to be a solution for everyone else, because with the rented Diesel locomotive comes the back office server and the liability insurance that the main line locomotive operator cannot afford to purchase.

Steve

I might add... because it leaves the end of the train unprotected. Once the warrant is released the dispatcher is free to give the track to someone else, who is expecting to be able to run to the end of authority, not find a train sitting in the last mile.

In some ways, this is just a piece of fluff, but it may still be of interest here.

https://www.railwayage.com/cs/ptc/how-u ... JbmFhSEdW4

While the one recent UP article states that UP has designed a way to install the entire PTC system in the 4014, I doubt that will lead to not have a diesel trailing the auxilliary water cars. Ed has stated pretty consistently that a trailing diesel is likely here to stay for a variety of rather practical reasons. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to expect to see steam running unaccompanied on just about any Class I mainline going forward. Whether we like it or not, or believe it's necessary or not, I think this is the new reality going forward.

Rob Gardner

I think he must have been pretty relieved to have a diesel with the recent exhaust steam injector/water issues.

What is the source of this information?

It isn't as intrusive as it looks in the photos. You would be thankful of the big screen if you're up there running the engine with all the chaos going on. I wouldn't want to try and decipher what a small screen is telling me and attend to all the other duties.

Its going to be a reality no matter what. And I think the diesel is also. Dynamic brakes is a huge advantage in running those trips. Brake shoes on an engine are expensive and a nasty pain in the ass to replace if you have an alternate method.

Just life in the 21st Century I guess. Be thankful of what we have and realize it has to play in the mainline traffic now and has to be adapted to it. As the saying goes "Go big or go home". If it keeps steam running, so be it.

This shows the mentality of Management. They'll integrate Positive Train Control with Track Warrants to detect human error, but they won't use the integration to prevent errors. If the system can detect where the rear end of a train is, then it can be programed so the crew can only release a Track Warrant up to that point.

It cannot "detect" where the rear end is, It can only assume where it is based on the input from the crew. The display will only show the first 7500' of a train, so if it longer, you may be guessing where the rear end actually is. I never trusted the odometers available to be accurate.

I have not operated in "dark" territory, so I cannot say with certainty that the system will show you when your rear end has cleared the previous authority. It will show when you clear slow orders though.

Positive Train Control could use track circuits or the location of the End Of Train devise. The earlier post claimed that the crew was fired because Positive Train Control could detect that the end of their train was located in the Track Warrant that they had released.

If they are in "dark" territory, there are no track circuits. ETDs will never get PTC GPS hardware, at least on my former employer, due to the costs involved. That's partly why PTC will not prevent collisions in Restricted Speed enforcement.

PTC should have actually stopped the first train when the dispatcher showed the authority for the segment released on his console and then that information would go to the train's onboard system. The onboard PTC train information would show that their train was still beyond the point where the dispatcher tried to release their authority or grant following authority, based on input from the crew regarding length. The PTC system will not tell the dispatcher that though.

Yesterday, I spoke to a fellow engineer who ran the 4015 behind the 4014 on a recent trip.

I asked him specifically about the PTC situation.

He said that they were using the PTC installation off of the diesel and had an "ethernet cable" ran from the 4015's console up to the PTC console on the steam engine. That made his screen go dark... he couldn't see anything. I bet that when they initialize PTC, they fib and don't tell it how the train's power is actually lined up. The 2 times I've used PTC... the first time I was completely unfamiliar with how to set it up and stumbled through the setup.. making a round trip of about 20 miles... when we got to the outlying point and finished our work, I swapped ends and ran from my 2nd unit going back to town. I set it up wrong and entered the wrong information as far as controlling locomotive and it's placement. Going past mileposts... the screen was 71 feet off.. the length of one of the units. I'm sure they're doing on purpose what I did my mistake.

He was just a manned helper... Ed would tell him if he wanted a little throttle or what... said he never used the dynamics.

Was on duty 12 hours for the 186 mile trip... said he was bored shitless, couldn't see anything. Said he got sick of listening to the constant whistling, though...lol.

A December 22, 2021 article on Railfan.com says 2926's PTC installation has been completed:
Link: Santa Fe 2926 Gets Positive Train Control