Positive Train Control - Basic Operation

Basic Operation

A typical PTC system involves two basic components:

  • Speed display and control unit on the locomotive
  • A method to dynamically inform the speed control unit of changing track or signal conditions.

Optionally, three additional components may exist:

  • An on board navigation system and track profile database to enforce fixed speed limits
  • Bi directional data link to inform signaling equipment of the train's presence
  • Centralized systems to directly issue movement authorities to trains

Read more about this topic:  Positive Train Control

Famous quotes containing the words basic and/or operation:

    There’s one basic rule you should remember about development charts that will save you countless hours of worry.... The fact that a child passes through a particular developmental stage is always more important than the age of that child when he or she does it. In the long run, it really doesn’t matter whether you learn to walk at ten months or fifteen months—as long as you learn how to walk.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.
    Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)