WASHINGTON — The House passed a bill Tuesday that delays for three to five years the mandate for railroads to put long-sought safety technology in place.
Federal accident investigators say the technology, known as positive train control, would have prevented an Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia last May that killed eight people and injured about 200 others had it been working. Amtrak had installed the technology on tracks were the crash occurred, but it hadn’t been tested yet and so wasn’t turned on.
The bill was passed by a voice vote with little debate. Railroads and companies that ship freight by rail have been lobbying Congress heavily for a delay.
The bill also extends the government’s authority to spend money on highway programs through Nov. 20 in an effort to buy time for Congress to pass a long-term transportation bill. Current authority is due to expire on Thursday.
Senate action is still required.
The technology relies on GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train position and automatically slow or stop trains that are in danger of colliding or derailing due to excessive speed. A 2008 law gave railroads until the end of this year to implement the expensive technology, but most railroads aren’t expected to make the deadline.
Many railroads were late getting started. Freight railroads often host commuter railroad operations on their tracks, and they also frequently use the tracks of their competitors. Developing PTC systems that can be used by multiple railroads has added a layer of complexity to the effort. Railroads also ran into unanticipated difficulties acquiring the radio spectrum necessary to make the technology work and getting government permission to erect thousands of antennas along tracks.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been urging railroads to install positive train control or precursor train control technologies for more than four decades. The board has said that over that time it has investigated at least 145 PTC-preventable accidents in which more than 300 people were killed and 6,700 injured
Another recent accident the safety board has said could have been prevented by positive train control occurred in 2013 when a Metro-North commuter train in Bronx, New York, derailed while rounding a curve at excessive speed. Four people were killed and dozens injured. The train’s engineer had fallen asleep and failed to slow the train from 82 mph to the maximum authorized speed of 30 mph as it entered the curve.
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