Union Pacific Reports Positive Train Control Progress: Installation Completed and Passenger Routes Implemented

A press release from Union Pacific Railroad; February 5, 2019:

Omaha, Nebraska

Union Pacific installed Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment on 100 percent of required route miles and implemented on all required passenger train routes. Implementation efforts continue to ensure PTC interoperability with other freight and passenger railroads operating on Union Pacific tracks by 2020, as allowed by federal law.

One of the most challenging parts of PTC implementation is ensuring system interoperability among all U.S. rail lines and locomotives. Given the various readiness levels of North American freight and passenger railroads, including publicly funded commuter lines and short lines, it is important that all railroads continue working together to maintain the health, safety, resiliency, and fluidity of the rail network during PTC implementation.

Union Pacific’s fourth quarter 2018 accomplishments, between October 1 and December 21, 2018, 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 Union Pacific retrains employees and introduces the system to new employees. Training materials are tailored to a variety of employee roles, including engineer, conductor, dispatcher, maintenance of way/engineering, mechanical, signal, telecom and information technologies.
  • Increasing by 1,095 the number of implemented PTC route miles, bringing the total number of route miles in PTC operations to 13,015 or 76 percent. Four out of five passenger rail carriers are currently operating PTC-equipped trains over Union Pacific lines.

With the FRA’s conditional approval of Union Pacific’s PTC safety plan on April 26, 2017, Union Pacific is running PTC operations on more than 13,000 miles in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Union Pacific and freight and passenger railroads continue working together to safely implement PTC on the remaining 4,000 required route miles.

About Union Pacific

Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP). One of America’s most recognized companies, Union Pacific Railroad connects 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country by rail, providing a critical link in the global supply chain. The railroad’s diversified business mix is classified into its Agricultural Products, Energy, Industrial and Premium business groups. Union Pacific serves many of the fastest-growing U.S. population centers, operates from all major West Coast and Gulf Coast ports to eastern gateways, connects with Canada’s rail systems and is the only railroad serving all six major Mexico gateways. Union Pacific provides value to its roughly 10,000 customers by delivering products in a safe, reliable, fuel-efficient and environmentally responsible manner.

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