Union Pacific: PTC equipment now in place on all required route miles

(Source: Progressive Railroading 02/06/2019)

Union Pacific Railroad has installed positive train control (PTC) equipment on all its required route miles and implemented the system on all required passenger train routes, the Class I announced yesterday.

Implementation efforts underway continue to ensure that PTC will be interoperable with other freight and passenger railroads operating on UP tracks by the federal government’s deadline of Dec. 31, 2020, UP officials said in a press release.

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 21, 2018, UP’s PTC accomplishments included:
• educating 606 employees on PTC operations, bringing the total number of employees trained to 26,610, or 100 percent. PTC education is ongoing, as new employees join the railroad.
• Increasing by 1,095 the number of PTC implemented PTC route miles, bringing the total number of route miles in PTC operations to 13,015 or 76 percent. Four out of the five passenger-rail carriers are now operating PTC-equipped trains over UP lines.

With the Federal Railroad Administration’s conditional approval of UP’s PTC safety plan in April 2017, UP now is running PTC operations on more than 13,000 miles in 21 states. 

“Union Pacific and freight and passenger railroads continue working together to safety implement PTC on the remaining 4,000 required route miles,” UP officials said.