Norfolk Southern is planning on building seven 60-foot tall train control towers in Montgomery County, and 12 in Berks County.
The towers are a step in fulfilling requirements put into place by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to have positive train control infrastructure in place by 2018 for lines that carry hazardous materials or passengers.
The towers, built on railroad property, are exempt from local zoning ordinances. Officials from Montgomery and Berks counties said last week that they were not aware of the planned construction. Instead, notifications in local newspapers advertised that public comment was sought “regarding the effects of the project on historic properties.”
Each of the towers is part of an elaborate communications system called positive train control, which is able to override manual controls on a train to stop a locomotive that was in danger of crashing or derailing.
Norfolk Southern spokesman David Pidgeon said that the railroad is currently in the process of building approximately 4,500 of the towers, on about 10,000 miles of track that is mandated to comply with positive train control regulations.
The mandate, passed in 2008, originally required that positive train control be up and running for rail lines by the end of 2015. An extension was granted, however, in October 2015 that gave the railroads until 2018, with extra time built in for testing and inspections.
“We’re grateful that the extension was put into place,” Pidgeon said. “We’re all working towards that; it’s our full intention to have PTC ready to go by the deadline. We have been working on getting these installed since the day that this mandate passed, over the course of several years, working to test them to make sure that they are ready, to get all 4,500 or so running.”
In Montgomery County, the towers are planned for construction along the railroad right-of-way in the following locations:
* Three in Lower Merion: northwest and east the intersection of Belmont Avenue and the railroad and north of the intersection of Rover Road and the railroad.
* One in West Conshohocken: west of Fayette Street and the railroad
* One in Upper Providence: southeast of the intersection of Arch Street and the railroad
* One in Limerick: east of where Main Street meets the railroad
* One in Pottstown: west of South Keim Street and the railroad
In Berks County, towers will be built in Douglass Township, west of Grosstown Road; Amity Township, east of Main Street and other sites in West Reading, Robeson and Exeter.
Positive train control refers to technology that “provides a system capable of reliably and functionally preventing train-to-train collisions, overspeed derailments, incursions into established work zone limits, and the movement of a train through a main line switch in the improper position,” the Federal Railroad Administration explains.
The system prevents such accidents by overriding the controls maintained by conductors.
The systems were being voluntarily installed and tested by a few rails lines before the 2008 legislation was passed, according to the Federal Railroad Administration website. Now, all railroads that carry hazardous materials and/or passengers are required to install the technology.
Not only do towers have to be built, but locomotives have to be equipped to communicate with the towers and each other, Pidgeon said. Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of employees have to be trained on the systems as well before they are fully functional, he said.
In addition, rail lines had to work to develop some of the technology needed.
“In 2008, when it was passed, the technology as it was envisioned did not fully exist,” Pidgeon said. “It had to be built from the ground up. You can’t just go to an electronics retailer and pull it off the shelf. It takes time to be designed, for construction and certification.”
Each of the towers has to be inspected and certified by the Federal Railroad Administration, Pidgeon said.
“Everbody’s goal here is the same, and that is safety.”
