2140 - PTC

PTC, what is it. Positive train control. Due to be fully implemented by 2015. Of course the railroads are fighting it to the bitter end. They may not make the deadline because they've spent so much time fighting. They really don't care if you die in a train accident.

A Big One When a Norfolk Southern train hauling chlorine through Graniteville, South Carolina, derailed in 2005, toxic gas poured into the town.

So here's a long article about the governments fight to make the railroads do what they've been mandated by law to do.

From the article...

In 2007, Congress finally got involved, passing a law mandating positive train control, but President George W. Bush refused to sign it.

From the article...

In 1977, Mother Jones magazine broke the story that the Ford Motor Company had concluded, when its Pinto was blowing up with frightening regularity, that it was cheaper to pay the widows and orphans than it was to recall the cars and fix the problem. That cold-blooded cost-benefit analysis caused a scandal. Yet for the past three decades, since President Ronald Reagan ordered cabinet departments and independent agencies to conduct cost-benefit analyses before issuing new regulations, such computations have been national policy.

So here's THE ARTICLE. It's an interesting read.