For some of us, "Ripley" will forever be associated with a woman of unimpeachable character, inexhaustible courage, indefatigable intelligence, unstoppable ingenuity, and extremely long legs. For some of us "pulling a Ripley" will always mean outwitting, outfighting, and triumphing over an overwhelming, and overwhelmingly ugly, force.
For an ever shrinking portion of the population, "Ripley" will always be associated with "Believe It or Not," as in Ripley's Believe It or Not, trademarked patented copyrighted etc etc. For that portion of the population, "pulling a Ripley" will mean something unbelievable has happened.
Me? For me, Ripley means both Ripleys, but when I pull a Ripley it has more to do with some unbelievable luck and less to do with my courage, intelligence, ingenuity, or my own extremely long legs.
So here's the Ripley: FRA sent me May 2017 PTC performance summary reports from two railroads. Yeah, believe it or not.
You might remember that I had originally requested over two years of such reports, to which FRA responded with a Ripley of its own- a proposed bill of some $56,000. Believe it or not, but pay up.
As a consequence, I amended my request by reducing the sample to a single month, and believe it or not, with very little additional prodding and no additional charge, FRA transmitted the reports from two railroads to me. Wow, what a Ripley.
I think I should point out what wasn't sent to me. I requested the information on PTC performance as provided by all railroads currently engaged in either revenue service demonstrations or full PTC operation. I reduced the time span of the request to a single month, I did not change the criteria for inclusion, which were railroads engaged in either revenue service demonstration of PTC or operating with full PTC enforcement over a section or sections of the railroad.
According to my review of the 2017 Q2 PTC Progress Reports, in May 2017 sixteen (16) railroads, nine (9) passenger and seven (7) freight entities were conducting revenue service demonstrations or had territories with full PTC operation. I received two reports. Wow, that's a Ripley.
Well,all right, let's see what we can see. The first redacted report, let's say it's from Railroad A, summarizes data from three of A's subdivisions. Collectively, the three accounted for 163 train starts with I-ETMS equipped locomotives in the lead. Of those 163, 159 had the I-ETMS operative on the locomotive. Of those 159, 141 trains completed their runs with "no critical anomaly or failure while the I-ETMS was operating," for an operating success ratio (141/163) of 86.5 percent.
The 163 trains experienced 13 PTC initiated brake enforcements for an enforcement to total trains ratio of 7.9 percent.
Those aren't good numbers--not good enough at least for consistent, train-wide, network wide, safety. I don't know any element of safe train operations where achieving 86.5 percent of target is acceptable; where an efficiency of 86.5 percent doesn't constitute a decline, a degradation from prior levels of performance.
The second report, Railroad B, obviously a passenger operation, states that in the month of May, 97 percent of 5658 trains completed PTC runs were completed without cutting out the PTC apparatus enroute. Better than 86.5 percent for sure, but not good enough for a train control enforcement system. We would not accept 97 percent operating reliability form a cab signal/speed control system.
Perhaps of even greater concern for Railroad B is the fact that the 182 (average) trains daily experienced approximately 38 PTC enforcements triggered by "training issues," meaning human factors. Now there's good news and there's bad news in this. The good news is that when the human operator is not familiar with the procedures that satisfy the PTC system safety requirements, the system reacts to the failure by enforcing a brake application. The bad news is that you cannot operate a system efficiently or safely if 20 percent of your trains are operated by locomotive engineers who cannot prevent a penalty brake application.
I've made a request for the May 2017 reports from the other 14 railroads. I have no idea how much FRA might require for producing those reports, but in the immortal words of Ripley, last surving crew member of the Nostromo, and last surving member of the expeditionary force sent to LV 426, "they can bill me."
David Schanoes
January 6, 2018
PS I'm more than happy to share the reports I have received with others, so if interested, contact me via email.
You are my lucky star-- Ripley, Alien (1979)
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