newpylong wrote:Is CTC part of the upgrade or are they sticking with what they have? 59 aint so sweet...
Upgrades to 79 MPH all points south of White River Jct. where CTC exists. North to St. Albans stays 59 but all slow orders will disappear. Adding CTC north of there is expensive enough that it'll have to be a separate appropriation, but all the track work and full CWR rail will make it such that signal replacement is the
only remaining checklist item to enable 79 all the way. It won't be more than a couple years later before that's installed as a tack-on project. They just couldn't afford it now.
The ABS territory presents problems for the PTC mandate. Throwing the cab signal and ACSES layers on top of the upgraded CTC territory Springfield-WRJ is not expensive and will almost certainly be funded in time for the '15 deadline. Installing the CTC is the expensive part. Who knows what they're going to do. Unfortunately Downeaster's in the same boat with all the ABS in MBTA territory, and that's the bigger regional terror threat they have to address before the deadline. NECR should be fine because they'll be running the same GPS-based system that P&W and other regionals will for all their non-passenger track. But would suck for Amtrak to have to install second transmitters in the locos as a stopgap until they can get permanent upgrades to St. Albans. GPS-based PTC with ABS track signals are good enough for NECR headways, but there's no substitute for a more reliable permanent track hardware installation when it's well-patronized passenger service that's got to hold a schedule slot on the NEC.
