From: stephen@sprunk.org   
      
   On 12-Feb-16 11:31, Kurt Hackenberg wrote:   
   > Stephen Sprunk   wrote:   
   >   
   >>> Personally, as a passenger, I really wish NJT would speed up run   
   >>>  times to what they were back in the 1980s.   
   >>   
   >> We can solve that problem literally overnight; the entire rest of   
   >> the world uses trains that are gooder, faster _and_ cheaper* than   
   >> ours, and they'd be happy to sell them here too if the FRA would   
   >> let them.   
   >   
   > Joe Szabo, former head of the FRA, talked like he would change that.   
   > "We're not going to build tanks anymore."  But he pushed hard to   
   > require every freight train to have at least two crew members, and   
   > apparently was fired for that.   
      
   It's strange he'd get fired for that since it's mandated by the unions   
   _and_ implicitly required by other rules.   
      
   > Let's see, do I remember that the FRA will waive the buffer strength   
   > rule when and where PTC is in place?   
      
   NJT and CMTA got waivers under temporal separation.   
      
   CalTrain got a waiver in mixed traffic under PTC.   
      
   DCTA got a waiver in mixed traffic under CTC, but only for a specific   
   trainset with advanced CEM.   
      
   The latter two are both interesting, and for very different reasons.   
      
   Supposedly, Tier III will be based on DCTA's waiver, and hopefully a   
   single standard that industry can build to means they can sell their   
   products nationwide without going through an arbitrary and capricious   
   waiver process.  We'll see how that works out in practice.   
      
   S   
      
   --   
   Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein   
   CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the   
   K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking   
      
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