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workers who are engaged in track maintenance. Under study since the mid1980s, the systems send and receive a continuous stream of data transmitted by wireless signals about the location, speed, and direction of trains. Digital radio links, global positioning systems, and wayside computer control systems aid dispatchers and train crews in safely managing train movements. For example, if a train operator fails to halt a train at a stop signal, the PTC system would apply the brakes automatically. Rail safety officials have said the hightech upgrades could have prevented several fatal train accidents in recent years, including the Jan. 6, 2005, derailment of several railcars in Graniteville, S.C. In this case, a railroad employee failed to properly set a track switch, resulting in a collision and derailment. Sixty tons of toxic chlorine gas was released, killing nine people and injuring hundreds more. PTC systems have been put to use only in limited areas, including the Northeast and in the area between Chicago and Detroit. Regulations issued by the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in January require freight railroads to install the sophisticated warning and control devices nationwide on 65,000 miles of mainline tracks that carry passengers or transport highly toxic chemicals. The railroads must meet the 2015 deadline set in the 2008 law. AVOIDING ACCIDENTS
If an engineer misses a red signal or is on the wrong track, positive train control can automatically stop the locomotive.
CHLORINE SHIPPERS FEAR RAIL RATE HIKES
Lobbyists DISPUTE COSTS, BENEFITS of technology to prevent crashes GLENN HESS, C&EN WASHINGTON
A CONGRESSIONAL mandate for rail car-
riers that haul chlorine and other extremely hazardous materials to install costly new collision-avoidance systems has set off another squabble between chemical shippers and the nation’s freight railroads. The debate is part of a broader dispute over shipping rates. Chemical companies, which rely heavily on freight trains to transport raw materials and deliver their goods, have complained for years that, as a result of deregulation and mass consolidation, big railroad companies now operate as virtual monopolies. Chemical manufacturers, along with utilities and grain producers, argue that railroads charge ever-escalating rates while providing poor and unpredictable service, particularly for “captive shippers” located in areas where only a single rail company operates. Two-thirds of U.S. chemical plants that rely on railroads are served by one freight carrier, according to the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group. Such captive shippers pay on average 20% more than shippers with economic alternative ways to transport commodities. Railroads counter that average inflation-
adjusted rates for all shippers have plunged 55% since Congress deregulated the industry in 1980. “In fact, freight rail rates are a bargain,” says Edward R. Hamberger, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Railroads (AAR), a trade association representing major rail companies such as Union Pacific Railroad, CSX Transportation, BNSF Railway, and Norfolk Southern Railway. Freight railroads also say they face potentially ruinous financial liability because they have an obligation under federal law to carry some of the most highly toxic chemicals around the country. The latest dispute stems from rail safety improvement legislation that Congress passed and former president George W. Bush signed into law in 2008. That legislation directs railroads to develop and deploy by the end of 2015 automated safety systems that can remotely slow or even stop a train before certain types of accidents caused by human error occur. Positive train control (PTC) is a catchall term that describes an integrated set of technologies designed to help prevent collisions between two or more trains, avoid over-speed derailments, and safeguard WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY has ex-
pressed strong support for using the technology to make rail movements safer. But shippers of chlorine and other chemicals classified as toxic inhalation hazards are worried that railroads will try to recoup the huge costs of installing PTC systems by hitting them with large rate hikes. The Chlorine Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group representing chloralkali producers and distributors, has asked FRA to correct what it terms a “faulty” costbenefit analysis of the accident prevention systems, which was included in the final rule implementing the congressional mandate. FRA’s analysis “excluded the economic business and societal benefits that will result from implementing PTC,” such as productivity gains from more efficient service and diverting more freight traffic from the
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shipments,” the railroad official declares. Instead of “bashing” FRA’s analysis, Hamberger remarks, chlorine shippers and similar customers should join the railroads in improving the safety of rail transportation, as well as reducing the public’s potential exposure to dangerous chemicals “through product substitution.” According to a study commissioned by AAR and conducted by consulting firm Oliver Wyman, more than 80% of the claimed business benefits from the use of PTC technology cited by the Peabody analysis come from increasing train speed and creating new rail line capacity by allowing trains to be spaced more closely together. The AAR study, however, found that the PTC systems the railroads plan to implement will likely not increase train speed or capacity. “Current PTC technology cannot equal the handling and braking precision of a skilled engineer,” the rail group says. “Increased stopping distances will mean reduced average speed and reduced capacity.” Hamberger notes that Britain’s Strategic Rail Authority has concluded that European PTC-like systems comparable with those envisioned for use in the U.S. would have a negative impact on capacity. “It’s important to compare apples to apples, and to be realistic about what technology is available for use in meeting the mandate,” he remarks. “The truth is that in weighing all the factors involved in PTC implementation, FRA’s examination of the costs versus the benefits of PTC clearly shows that there are no present business benefits to the railroads,” Hamberger adds. GLENN HESS/C&EN
AAR
highways to safer rail lines, says Chlorine impact and harm” toxic inhalation hazInstitute President Frank Reiner. ard rail shippers, as they stand to absorb “Our concern is that policy and business much of the costs. Charging these shippers decisions will be made based on the costhigher rates will also provide “a strong inbenefit analysis in the final rule,” he notes. centive” to drive hazardous cargo onto the The institute fears that railroads will use an highways and away from the rails, which is inaccurate analysis to “justify significant considered the safest mode of transportarate increases,” Reiner says. tion for chlorine and other highly toxic According to calculations done by FRA, chemicals, Reiner notes. railroads will have to spend approximately $5 billion to install PTC systems—an amount roughly equal to what railroads have spent over the past five years combined on capital expenditures for infrastructure expansion. After installation, rail companies will also have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to maintain their systems. Altogether, FRA estimates, the PTC mandate will cost railroads $10 billion to $13 billion over 20 years with about a $500 million safety benefit. Hamberger Reiner In its petition, the Chlorine Institute contends that the agency’s analysis, which “drastically underestimates” the A study conducted for the Chlorine Inrule’s benefits, “could foster a situation that stitute by the consulting firm L. E. Peabody would allow railroads to impose an unfairly & Associates says FRA’s analysis underestilarge share of the costs of applying PTC mates the economic benefits of implementtechnology” on shippers of chlorine and ing PTC technology by more than $12 bilother toxic inhalation hazard chemicals. lion. In addition to safer operations, the key “The railroads have stated that they will benefits for railroads include fuel savings attempt to recover their investment difrom better fuel monitoring and more efrectly from the shippers they view as being ficient operations, better equipment utilizaprimarily responsible for the requirement tion, and improved dispatching operations, to install PTC,” Reiner says. according to the industry-funded analysis. These efforts, he remarks, will “directly While FRA’s final rule includes only the railroad safety benefits expected to result from PTC installation, the Peabody study says there will also be reduced costs for all POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL: rail shippers as a result of improved and HOW THE TECHNOLOGY more reliable transit times. It also predicts WORKS a related decrease in highway crashes and ■ Digital communications are comcongestion as shippers take advantage of bined with Global Positioning System better train service and shift freight from (GPS) technology to monitor train truck to rail. locations and speeds. “To arbitrarily exclude vast sums on the benefit side of the cost-benefit analysis is ■ These systems can detect excessive to fatally prejudice the result in a manner speed, improperly aligned switches, that is wholly unacceptable, and inconsiswhether trains are on the wrong track, tent with the most basic cost-benefit modunauthorized train movements, and els,” the Chlorine Institute petition states. whether trains have missed signals to But AAR’s Hamberger says the chlorine slow or stop. industry’s criticism of FRA’s cost-benefit calculation is “a smoke screen” to hide ■ If engineers do not comply with sigthe fact that their shipments will raise the nals, the system automatically brings cost of rail transportation for all customthe trains to a stop. ers. “The high cost of the PTC mandate is a direct result of the toxic nature of chlorine
THE CHLORINE INSTITUTE’S Reiner
disagrees and says experts have assured the institute that the PTC technology the railroads will install to satisfy the federal requirements is sophisticated enough to produce the substantial benefits the Peabody analysis projects for both the freight rail industry and society as a whole. “It is apparent that the FRA analysis is seriously flawed,” Reiner told agency officials in a May 25 letter. “Only a reevaluation of the assumptions used and the methods employed in conducting the FRA costbenefit analysis that includes all elements of benefits flowing from Positive Train Control can correct the deficiencies.” ■
