Lifesaving rail technology deadline nears
Two deadly train collisions in Connecticut could have been avoided if railway technology now required on commuter lines existed at the time, federal authorities say
The Federal Railroad Administration documented two rail accidents in the state in the past 50 years that could have been prevented if automatic braking technology called positive train control were implemented at the time — one in Darien in 1969 on Penn Central rails and another in New Canaan in 1976 on Conrail.
Between the two incidents, 73 people were injured and six people died.
Congress required all rail lines to implement PTC — a technology that helps lines communicate and stop speeding trains — through the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Now, with the Dec. 31 deadline approaching, only one of the railroads required to have PTC installed and operational — New Jersey Transit — is at risk of not meeting it, government data show.
The safety measure is fully operating on MetroNorth and Amtrak lines, as well as other railroads across the country. The state Department of Transportation has spent more than
$111 million installing the technology.
“With this PTC technology we are reinforcing our commitment to safety, for both our passengers and the men and women who work on the railroad, for years to come,” Connecticut DOT Commissioner Joseph Giulietti said. “This monumental project would have not been possible without the tremendous partnership and coordination between the MTA, Metro-North, Amtrak, the FRA and the dedicated team at the CTDOT — thank you for your resolve to see this project through despite the many obstacles we faced this year.”
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, 154 rail crashes since
1969 could have been prevented had positive train control been installed, which would have saved 305 lives, prevented 6,800 injuries, and avoided at least
$391 million in property damage.
“This life-saving technology will make rail travel in our state safer for the traveling public,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., said. “I look forward
to Connecticut DOT and Metro-North completing critical updates on the Waterbury Line to achieve full operation throughout the system.”
Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi said earlier this month they fully implemented PTC operations on the New Haven line and Metro-North achieved interoperability with Amtrak.
Metro North and Amtrak, the main railroads operating in Connecticut, have also recorded a number of rail accidents that could have been prevented with PTC.
“Safety has always been the highest priority of the MTA and full PTC functionality will take the safety of our system to the next level and ultimately safe lives in the process,” said MTA Chairman Pat Foye. “This technology can help stop accidents before they occur and keep our customers and employees safe. It’s a major advance in transit, not only here in New York but across the nation and will help make 2021 the safest year on the railroads yet.”
With PTC, the locomotive communicates with the rail tracks, nearby cell towers, rail operation centers, and work crews using GPS, WiFi, and secure radio transmissions to override an engineer and stop a speeding train.
The Hearst Television National Investigative Unit showed how it works in 2018, onboard an empty SEPTA train in Philadelphia.
“It’ll save lives,” declared Jennifer Homendy, a board member at the NTSB, the independent safety investigative agency that has pushed for increased rail safety technology for a halfcentury.
The system is designed to reduce the potential for
human error to contribute to train-to-train collisions, trains traveling into zones where railroad employees are working on tracks, or derailments caused by a train traveling too fast into a curve or into a misaligned switch.
It relies on a network of transponders spaced every one to two miles depending on interlocking density, of which Metro-North has 3,800. The trains automatically communicate in real time with central dispatching offices sharing information on train position, speed and the engineer’s actions.
If the train is traveling too fast, the system will automatically take control to slow it down while alerting the train engineer.
The Rail Safety Act required the technology be installed by the end of 2015; the deadline was subsequently delayed twice, with the final date set for the end of this month.
The law — and FRA regulations — only require PTC on 41 percent of the rail miles in America; it’s not required on all nuclear waste or lower-density lines, for example.
The National Investigative Unit has tracked the slow progress of America's railroads to install the technology. The NTSB’s frustration with the pace of installation led the agency to putting the technology on its ‘Most Wanted’ list of improvements nearly every year since 1990.
So far, the FRA has fined railroads, including Amtrak and Metro-North, more than $483,000 for past failures to meet implementation milestones — and could levy more, a spokesman said.
As of Dec. 3, the latest date for which Federal Railroad Administration data was available, 19 percent — one out of every five — passenger railroads using PTC still couldn’t talk to each other, which means the life-saving technology wouldn’t work if interoperability were needed.
Additionally, an inspector general report this month found Amtrak can’t easily measure its PTC reliability or identify problems with the technology and that the passenger railroad’s manual workarounds are “inefficient and error prone.”
“Where there is a safety risk, where there could be fatalities or injuries — and I’m including workers in that — absolutely,” PTC should be required, said Homendy.
The administrator of the FRA, Ron Batory, declined a request to be interviewed for this story, as he has repeatedly for the past two years. He is expected to leave his post when the Biden administration begins Jan. 20, 2021.
The PTC deadline is arriving too late for Jim Lovell.
The father of three boys died in 2013 when a New York City-bound MetroNorth train going more than twice the speed limit derailed in the Bronx; three others were killed, too.
Just six months later, at a televised board meeting in July 2014, Lovell's widow, Nancy Montgomery, unleashed her fury on the MTA rail board, which oversaw the system that had not yet installed positive train control six years after Congress first decided to require it.
“To the board members who still feel that safety first is just not going to wash: I suggest you resign,” Montgomery told the board members sitting across from her in a packed room.
Today, the railroad has PTC. Nancy Montgomery is a local legislator. Their boys are adults. And the hundreds of letters of support from strangers still give her comfort – and a mission.
"We need to make sure that the oversight and the management of these companies serves the needs that will continue to keep the little guy in mind,” Montgomery said in an interview, “so that Jim Lovells can get on the train and go to work and make it home.”