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Yesterday, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced it approved BNSF Railway Co.’s Product Safety Plan for the Electronic Train Management System (ETMS™) — the first time the administration has approved a positive train-control system since the agency revised signal and train-control regulations in March 2005.

Now, BNSF can begin implementing ETMS — a safety overlay over an existing signaling system — on 35 lines in 17 states, pending the FRA’s employee training, recordkeeping, and operations testing and reporting conditions.

“This is a major achievement that marks the beginning of a new era of rail safety,” said FRA Administrator Joseph Boardman in a prepared statement. “The steps FRA and railroads are taking show that applying PTC technology can work and will provide important safety benefits.”

ETMS monitors and processes train movement information — such as authority limits, speed restrictions, signal aspects and switch position — through a digital communications network and displays information on a computer installed in a locomotive cab. The system determines train location via a Global Positioning System and automatically initiates braking if an engineer doesn’t act in accordance with operating instructions, or fails to respond to movement and speed limit warnings.

In 2003, the FRA granted BNSF and ETMS developer Wabtec Corp. a waiver to test the system on 50 locomotives operating along a 135-mile corridor between Beardstown and Centralia, Ill. Since October 2004, more than 2,000 revenue service train trips have been completed using ETMS-equipped locomotives.

The pilot project was “instrumental in proving the value and safety of this technology,” said BNSF Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose.

Last year, BNSF obtained FRA approval to test ETMS on a 300-mile corridor between Arkansas City, Kan., and Fort Worth, Texas, a portion of which is used by Union Pacific Railroad and Amtrak trains. BNSF plans to implement the system on the corridor in the second quarter.