PTC Final Rule to be Issued Friday

Last week I mentioned that I thought that the Positive Train Control (PTC) Final Rule was near to being issued. Today a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) press release noted that the final PTC rule was being published today in the Federal Register. Actually, that is misleading as it was not published in today’s FR. It was released to the GPO today for publication in the January 15th issue of the FR. An advance copy of the final rule is available on the FRA web site. A quick review of the advance copy of the final rule shows that there is an extensive discussion about the issue of PIH re-routing decisions and their affects on which lines will be required to install PTC systems and how that might affect shipping costs. I will hold-off making any detailed comments on this until the legal version of the rule is published on Friday, but it looks like this rule is going to have a significant impact on shippers of PIH chemical via rail.