Rail safety system complete
Positive train control, meant to curb wrecks, was decades in making
A system intended to prevent train collisions and derailments caused by excessive speed has been completed, the Federal Railroad Administration announced. The multiyear effort to install positive train control wrapped up on Dec. 29, two days before a deadline set by Congress.
PTC is designed to keep trains from running through red signals or being switched to the wrong track, prevent derailments caused by excessive speeds and keep trains out of active work zones.
It has been a top priority of railroad safety regulators for a half-century, following a head
on collision between two Penn Central commuter trains in August 1969 that killed four passengers in Darien, Conn.
The nation’s seven Class 1 railroads — BNSF Railway Co., CSX Transportation, Grand
Trunk Corporation (Canadian National’s operations), Kansas City Southern Railway, Norfolk Southern, Soo Line Corporation (Canadian Pacific’s operations) and Union Pacific Rail
road — spent $11.5 billion to develop and deploy PTC, according to the Association of American Railroads. That figure doesn’t include spending by short-line and passenger railroads.
“Achieving 100 percent PTC implementation is a tremendous accomplishment and reflects the Department’s top priorities — safety, innovation, and infrastructure,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao.
The system is operating along 57,536 miles of track.
PTC likely would have prevented the derailment of a Metro-north commuter train that entered a sharp curve at excessive speed just north of New York City in December 2013. Four passengers died in the accident.
It also might have prevented high-speed derailments in Washington state that killed three and on the Northeast Corridor outside Philadelphia that killed eight, as well as the
head-on crash involving a Metrolink commuter train in southern California that claimed 25 lives.
Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act in October 2008, requiring railroads to have positive train control installed by the end of 2015. Congress postponed the deadline at least twice as railroads struggled with such issues as allowing locomotives from one railroad to operate on the tracks of another railroad with different PTC technology.
Trains are tracked by satellite and by sensors and transponders alongside the track that monitor signals and switches. The system can slow or stop a train if it travels through a red signal.
“At its core, PTC is a risk reduction system that will make a safe industry even safer and provide a solid foundation upon which additional safety improvements will be realized,” said Federal Railroad Administrator Ronald L. Batory.