Foundations Of Rail Safety With Steve Ditmeyer Part 1, PTC

In Part 1 of this two-part series on railroad safety and
technology, Steven R. Ditmeyer discusses the fundamentals of
signaling and train control and takes a deep dive into PTC
(Positive Train Control) and its potential for evolving beyond a
safety overlay system with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C.
Vantuono. Ditmeyer has had an extensive career in railroading that
started in 1960 on the St. Louis Terminal Railroad. He received a
B.S. in Industrial Management from MIT and an M.A. in Economics
from Yale. In the private sector, he worked for six railroads and a
railroad equipment manufacturer. In the public sector, he served as
an Army Transportation Corps officer on active duty in the
Logistics Directorate of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and in the Reserves in the 3rd Railway Brigade, as Associate
Administrator for Policy and for R&D at the Federal Railroad
Administration, as acting general manager of The Alaska Railroad,
as associate professor of economics and transportation at National
Defense University, and as economist and rail technology expert at
the World Bank. His career has cut across multiple disciplines,
including freight and passenger railroading, engineering,
economics, research and development, policy, marketing, management,
operations, information technology, systems analysis, command and
control systems and education. In his early days at FRA, Ditmeyer
was involved in the creation of Amtrak, the preliminary engineering
and economic studies for the Northeast Corridor Project, and the
establishment of the Transportation Technology Center. As head of
policy at FRA, he initiated the sale of The Alaska Railroad by the
Federal Government to the State of Alaska and was involved in
developing the legislation for the deregulation of the freight
railroad industry. At Burlington Northern Railroad, he was
intimately involved in development and testing of the first PTC
system (ARES) and the development and testing of the first natural
gas locomotives. Following retirement, he helped structure and
teach in railway management programs as an adjunct faculty member
at Michigan State University and the University of Delaware, and
HEC and EML Business Schools, both in France.