PTC Final Rule Nears Release

The Positive Train Control (PTC) final rule was approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), last week. This is one of the last administrative hurdles that a final rule has to clear before it is published in the Federal Register. The only thing left to do is to complete any corrections or updates required by OMB. The final rule will likely be published this month. While the PTC rule is not really a hazardous material regulation (HMR), it will certainly affect the rail shipments of poison inhalation hazard (PIH) chemicals. The pending regulations have already been used by the Union Pacific Railroad to justify drastically increased rates for shipping railcars of chlorine in a pending case before the Surface Transportation Board (STB). The requirement for railroads to install expensive automated train controls on lines over which significant amounts of PIH chemicals travel will certainly increase operating costs for those railroads. If the railroads are allowed to pass those costs directly to PIH shippers (certainly an economically justifiable move), this could result in a dramatic reduction in the amount of these chemicals shipped by rail over certain routes. Whether this will be the result of end users switching to newly cheaper alternative chemicals, or producers switching to newly cheaper alternative transportation remains to be seen.