In May, Amtrak Northeast Regional train No. 188 careened off the track while rounding a bend outside of Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring 200 passengers and crew.
Federal investigators have yet to determine why the train sped up to the lethal speed that led to the crash, but government officials acknowledge it would not have over-accelerated if Positive Train Control technology had been in place.
But it wasn’t installed. And lawmakers included language in a stop-gap highway funding measure that would provide an additional three years for railroad companies to install the technology beyond a December deadline.
The provision allows railroads that can’t get the job done by the new deadline to seek yet another extension in 2018 for a maximum of two years.
The move came following heavy lobbying from the railroad industry and business groups who rely on trains for shipping goods.
Railroad companies warned they are far from meeting the deadline for installing the control system, and if it was not extended, a nationwide freight and passenger rail shutdown would ensue as early as November.
“Despite huge efforts to meet this deadline, most railroads will not be able to comply with this mandate,” the Association of American Railroads warned. “Faced with the potential of violating federal law, freight railroads have told Congress that they may be forced to suspend some service and operations.”
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, warned of a “transportation calamity,” if the deadline is not extended.
House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said failure to extend the deadline could interrupt the freight train transport of critical supplies, including the chlorine used to purify drinking water.
“The sooner we extend this deadline, the more certainty we will give our agricultural, manufacturing and chemical industries to ensure there will be no supply-chain disruptions,” Shuster said.
Some lawmakers are not happy with the proposed extension.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the extension “way too long,” and pledged to work for “a reasonable measure that provides adequate time but holds railroads accountable through year-by-year review of progress toward fully-implemented PTC.”
Positive Train Control is a GPS-based system that acts like a speed safety valve.
“PTC monitors and, if necessary, controls train movement in the event of human error,” according to a description provided by the California-based Metrolink, which uses the technology. “PTC may also bring trains to a safe stop in the event of a natural disaster.”
The federal government first demanded the installation of PTC seven years ago, following Metrolink’s Sept. 12, 2008, crash with a Union Pacific freight train, which killed 25 people.
Congress at the time gave railroads a Dec. 31, 2015, deadline to have it fully in place.
But the railroads have lagged on the project for a variety of reasons, including difficulty in acquiring bandwidth needed for the wireless system to work.
Progressive Railroading newsletter notes another big hurdle: the government.
Railroads have been hindered most in their efforts to install the technology by the Federal Communications Commission, which in 2014 had ordered train companies to halt the installation of 22,000 antennas needed for the PTC system to work.
According to the newsletter, the FCC required additional time, “to develop a historic preservation and tribal review process for the antennas’ locations.”
