Lawmakers are turning up the heat as they pressure railroads to implement technology that could have prevented recent train crashes as the railroads face a December deadline — 10 years after Congress first instructed railroads to start installing it.
The technology, known as positive train control, automatically reduces speeds of trains that are over the speed limit and can stop them in hazardous scenarios, yet it’s uncertain when the technology will be fully implemented by all railroads.
The pressure from lawmakers comes following several train crashes, including fatal ones in Washington and South Carolina that could have been prevented with functioning and operating positive train control, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
“There have been far too many fatal rail accidents that were PTC preventable,” ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “We cannot wait any longer.”
In 2008, Congress first instructed railroads to install positive train control with a deadline of full implementation by Dec. 31, 2015. However, as the deadline approached in 2015, lawmakers pushed it back to Dec. 31, 2018, with the possibility of an extension to Dec. 31, 2020, if the railroad meets certain requirements.
But the Federal Railroad Administration’s chief counsel, Juan Reyes III, said last month during a testimony before the House’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials that “few, if any” of all the 41 railroads will have fully implemented positive train control by the end of 2018 as the FRA continues to oversee railroads’ progress.
Reyes said that some railroads, like BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, will likely have an FRA-certified PTC system in operation on their own locomotives and routes before the December deadline, but full implementation also requires that locomotives from one railroad can operate on other tracks — which he admitted was “unlikely” to happen this year.
Reyes cited a limited number of suppliers and vendors, and technical issues that are difficult to diagnose, as challenges railroads have encountered, among other things.
Additionally, the Government Accountability Office released a report at the end of February that revealed of the 29 commuter railroads, 19 may not fully implement positive train control by December and also may not have made enough progress to qualify for an extension. This is partly due to the lengthy time required for testing the technology.
“GAO’s conclusion that some railroads will not meet the deadline to install positive train control comes as no surprise,” DeFazio said.
“Some railroads embraced it early on and have made tremendous progress. Others have work to do,” he added.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called the GAO report “unacceptable and outrageous.”
“We want the work done, and we want it done now,” Maloney told the Washington Examiner.
Maloney said railroads should be accessing funds available to them, such as through the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing loan programs, because that is what systems that have been moving forward have done.
As December approaches, he said railroads should at least try to meet requirements to obtain an extension, which includes having all positive train control hardware and software installed.
“We should see a flurry of activity for railroads to meet the interim milestones to qualify for the additional 24 months that the law provides, if they are showing good progress,” Maloney said.
Reyes noted that the FRA held “face-to-face discussions” with all 41 railroads, both freight and commuter, in January and February to evaluate what steps need to be taken to reach the December deadline or qualify for an extension. Although full implementation by December is unlikely, he anticipates that a majority would meet the requirements to qualify for an extension.
An FRA spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that it “is taking a proactive approach” to meet the December deadline and has been meeting with positive train control suppliers to “learn more about their capacity to meet the high demands for railroads’ implementation of PTC systems in a timely manner.”
In the event that railroads do not install and implement the technology by December and haven’t reached enough milestones to qualify for an extension, Maloney called on the FRA to issue the most severe fines at their disposal.
“I want to see the FRA use the maximum fines available to them under current law to punish every railroad that fails to meet this deadline,” he said.
Meanwhile, the FRA told the GOA that it “has yet to determine how it will handle railroads that do not meet the deadline or receive an extension.”
Although it appears many railroads will have to seek extensions, DeFazio has spearheaded an effort to prevent any extensions from being given in the future by introducing in January the Positive Train Control Implementation and Financing Act of 2018, which would require railroads to implement and install positive train control by the end of 2018.
The legislation, which is cosponsored by Maloney and others, also provides $2.5 billion in grant money to help commuter railroads and intercity railways install the technology.
“No more excuses, no more extensions,” DeFazio said. “Lives depend on it.”
In total, the National Transportation Safety Board has determined that nearly 300 people have lost their lives from train crashes that could have been avoided with positive train control technology since 1969, the year after the board first recommended the technology be installed.
“What’s at stake is that people are going to die, because we don’t have this technology in place when we should have had it years ago,” Maloney said. “That’s why we feel urgent about this.”
