Train safety must be top priority for all

The issue: Railroad safety is once again in question after the derailment of an Amtrak train in Washington state Monday that killed at least three people and injured more than 70. Investigators said the train operating on new tracks appeared to be going far above the speed limit.

The section lacked a technology that could have controlled the speed and slowed the train — Positive Train Control.

It should come as little surprise. Less than a quarter of the nation’s rail lines have installed PTC, first mandated by Congress in 2008. It is complicated, expensive and three years ago the deadline for full implementation was pushed to the end of 2018. Still, the FRA noted last year, railroads including Metro-North, which carries hundreds of thousands of riders from Connecticut into Manhattan every day, were behind scheduled benchmarks.

The seeming lack of urgency is inexcusable. Numerous deadly accidents in recent years have demonstrated the importance of this safety technology. PTC could have prevented the 2015 crash of an Amtrak train outside of Philadelphia that killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. PTC could have avoided the Metro-North derailment in 2013 at Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx that killed four. PTC could have prevented the Metro-North derailment that same year in Bridgeport that injured 76 passengers, and it possibly could have stopped a train from crashing into a Hoboken, New Jersey station last year, killing one person.

What we wrote: “The words Sarah E. Feinberg, [then] administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, used the other day are chillingly blunt: ‘Every day that passes without PTC (Positive Train Control), we risk adding another preventable accident to a list that is already too long.

“She spoke in connection with a report from her agency that found Metro-North Railroad is lagging in its work to install PTC — a high-tech system of sensors and radio transmissions that can take control of a train if human error has put the train and its passengers in jeopardy.” — Editorial, Aug. 24, 2016

“As it is, when the nation’s passenger and freight lines could not meet a December 2015 deadline to install PTC, Congress gave a three-year extension.

“But that breather of time does not absolve the railroads of acting with urgency to implement the technology. It must be a priority.” — Editorial, Oct. 2, 2016

“Given the deaths, near misses, derailments and so on that have plagued Metro-North over the last few years, a federal report that the commuter line is ‘stagnant’ in its progress on implementation of an automatic trains safety system is discouraging news indeed.”

“This work has to get done before another life — rider or worker — is lost.” — Dec. 4, 2016

What should happen next: The public needs more accountability from the FRA on progress of PTC installation, and needs more urgency from the railroads to get the work done on time. No more delays to safety.