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The Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee (NORAC) is a body of railroads that establish a set of operating rules for railroads in North America. The NORAC rulebook is used by full and associate member railroads, located mostly in the Northeast United States.
The NORAC rules are intended to enhance railroad safety. The rules cover employee responsibilities, signaling equipment, procedures for safe train movement, dealing with accidents and other topics that directly and indirectly affect railroad safety.
These rules govern operation on main lines, defined as those with some form of block control system.
The 10th edition of the NORAC operating rules went into effect on November 6, 2011. [1]
The 11th edition of the NORAC operating rules went into effect on February 1, 2018.
In January 1985, six railroads (Conrail, Amtrak, Metro-North, New Jersey Transit, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and Delaware & Hudson) met in Newark, New Jersey with the goal to create a common operating rulebook. In May 1985, a second meeting was held, with eight railroads present, five of the original six (Metro-North withdrew) plus Providence and Worcester, Long Island Rail Road, and Boston & Maine.
The first rulebook was released in January 1987. It contained rules for three types of train control: automatic block (ABS), manual block (MBS), and voice (VCS). The MBS and VCS systems were both governed by NORAC's Form D, which is a train order transmitted directly to the train.
In 1993 the fourth edition combined the MBS and VCS rules into a single "Form D Control System" (DCS).
The full set of NORAC rules is divided into 25 categories.
Metro-North Railroad, trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of the U.S. state of New York and under contract with the Connecticut Department of Transportation. Metro-North runs service between New York City and its northern suburbs in New York and Connecticut, including Port Jervis, Spring Valley, Poughkeepsie, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, White Plains, Southeast and Wassaic in New York and Stamford, New Canaan, Danbury, Waterbury, and New Haven in Connecticut. Metro-North also provides local rail service within the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx.
New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the US state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bus, light rail, and commuter rail services throughout the state, connecting to major commercial and employment centers both within the state and in the adjacent major cities of New York and Philadelphia.
The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The NEC closely parallels Interstate 95 for most of its length, and is the busiest passenger rail line in the United States both by ridership and by service frequency as of 2013. The NEC carries more than 2,200 trains daily.
The River Line is a diesel tram-train Interurban light rail system in southern New Jersey, United States, that connects the cities of Camden and Trenton, New Jersey's capital. It is operated for New Jersey Transit by the Southern New Jersey Rail Group (SNJRG), which originally included Bechtel Group and Bombardier. Now that the project is in its operational phase, Bombardier is the only member of SNJRG. The River Line is so named because the path between those two cities runs more or less parallel to the Delaware River.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, a distance of 395 miles (636 km). Incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1853 primarily for the purpose of providing a connection between the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania's Coal Region and the large markets for coal in New York City. The railroad gradually expanded both East and West, eventually linking Buffalo with New York City.
The Erie Lackawanna Railway, known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route".
NJ Transit Rail Operations is the rail division of NJ Transit. It operates commuter rail service in New Jersey, with most service centered on transportation to and from New York City, Hoboken, and Newark. NJ Transit also operates rail service in Orange and Rockland counties in New York under contract to Metro-North Railroad. The commuter rail lines had an average weekday ridership of 306,892 from June 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, making it the second-busiest commuter railroad in North America as well as the longest by route length. This does not include NJ Transit's light rail operations.
The MBTA Commuter Rail system serves as the commuter rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's transportation coverage of Greater Boston in the United States. Trains run over 398 mi (641 km) of track to 141 different stations, with 58 stations on the north side and 83 stations on the south. It is operated under contract by Keolis, which took over operations on July 1, 2014, from the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR).
Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail, an American railroad company. It operates three networks—the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Areas, where it serves as a contract local carrier and switching company for its owners, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway. When most of the former Conrail's track was split between these two railroads, the three shared assets areas were kept separate to avoid giving one railroad an advantage in those areas. The company operates using its own employees and infrastructure, but owns no equipment outside MOW equipment.
Conrail, formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do business as an asset management and network services provider in three Shared Assets Areas that were excluded from the division of its operations during its acquisition by CSX Corporation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.
Pan Am Railways, Inc. (PAR) is a subsidiary of CSX Corporation that operates Class II regional railroads covering northern New England from Mattawamkeag, Maine, to Rotterdam Junction, New York. Pan Am Railways is primarily made up of former Class II regional railroads such as Boston and Maine Corporation, Maine Central Railroad Company, Portland Terminal Company, and Springfield Terminal Railway Company. It was formerly known as Guilford Transportation Industries and was also known as Guilford Rail System. Guilford bought the name, colors, and logo of Pan American World Airways in 1998.
The Port Jervis Line is a predominantly single-track commuter rail line running between Suffern and Port Jervis, in the U.S. state of New York. At Suffern, the line continues south into New Jersey as NJ Transit's Main Line. The line is operated by NJ Transit Rail Operations under a working agreement with Metro-North Railroad (MNRR).
The Conrail Lehigh Line is a railroad line in New Jersey that is part of Conrail Shared Assets Operations under the North Jersey Shared Assets Area division. The line runs from CP Port Reading Junction in Manville to Oak Island Yard in Newark. The line is double-track and signaled through its entire length. The line began operations in 1999 using former existing tracks from Manville to Newark that was once part of the original Lehigh Line which is still in existence and is owned and operated by Norfolk Southern Railway.
Standards for North American railway signaling in the United States are issued by the Association of American Railroads (AAR), which is a trade association of the railroads of Canada, the US, and Mexico. Their system is loosely based on practices developed in the United Kingdom during the early years of railway development. However, North American practice diverged from that of the United Kingdom due to different operating conditions and economic factors between the two regions. In Canada, the Canadian Rail Operating Rules (CROR) are approved by the Minister of Transport under the authority of the Railway Safety Act. Each railway company or transit authority in Canada issues its own CROR rulebook with special instructions peculiar to each individual property. Among the distinctions are:
Roselle Park is a New Jersey Transit railroad station in Roselle Park, New Jersey. Located on the Conrail Lehigh Line which is owned by Conrail Shared Assets Operations on West Lincoln Avenue between Chestnut Street and Locust Street, it is served by Raritan Valley Line trains that travel between Newark Penn Station and Raritan. There is also limited service between High Bridge and New York Penn Station and one weekday morning train to Hoboken Terminal.
The General Code of Operating Rules (GCOR) is a set of operating rules for railroads in the United States. The GCOR is used by Class I railroads west of Chicago, most of the Class II railroads, and many Short-line railroads.
Pulse code cab signaling is a form of cab signaling technology developed in the United States by the Union Switch and Signal corporation for the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1920s. The 4-aspect system widely adopted by the PRR and its successor railroads has become the dominant railroad cab signaling system in North America with versions of the technology also being adopted in Europe and rapid transit systems. In its home territory on former PRR successor Conrail owned lines and on railroads operating under the NORAC Rulebook it is known simply as Cab Signaling System or CSS.
The Lackawanna Cut-Off Restoration Project is a New Jersey Transit and Amtrak effort to restore passenger service to the Lackawanna Cut-Off in northwest New Jersey.
The Lehigh Line is a railroad line in central New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs west from the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey to the Susquehanna River valley at the south end of the Wyoming Valley Coal Region. Administratively it is part of Norfolk Southern's Keystone Division (Harrisburg) and is also part of the Crescent Corridor. As of 2021 the line is freight-only, although there are perennial proposals to restore passenger service over all or part of the line.
The New York Branch or the Bound Brook Route was a railway line in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was operated by the Reading Company and owned by two of its subsidiaries, the North Pennsylvania Railroad and the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad. It formed part of the Reading's route from Philadelphia to New York City, used by the famed Crusader. The line was transferred to Conrail in 1976 and was split into the Neshaminy Line and Trenton Line. SEPTA continues to operate commuter trains to West Trenton as part of its West Trenton Line.