Major rail safety tech installed before deadline

OMAHA, NEB. » The railroad industry has installed an automatic braking systemon nearly 58,000 miles of track where it is required ahead of a yearend deadline, federal regulators said Tuesday.

Federal Railroad Administration chief Ronald Batory said railroads worked together over the past 12 years to develop and install the long-awaited technology known as positive train control, or PTC. The roughly $15 billion braking system is aimed at reducing human error by automatically stopping trains in certain situations like when it’s in danger of colliding, derailing because of excessive speed, entering track under maintenance or traveling the wrong direction because of switching mistakes.