Most railroads won't meet their end-of-year deadline to install
positive train control, or PTC, technology, which are safety
systems aimed at preventing certain collisions and derailments, the
Federal Railroad Administration said Friday in a status report.
In 2008, after a series of railroad accidents, Congress passed
the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which required PTC implementation
on certain railroad lines by the end of 2015. Only 39% of
locomotives required to be fully equipped with PTC by the end of
the year will be, according to projections from the Association of
American Railroads. In addition, 76% of wayside interface units and
67% of base station radios will have been installed by the deadline
and 34% of required employees will be trained, said the AAR, a rail
industry group.
Only 29% of commuter railroads are likely to have installed PTC
equipment by the end-of-year deadline, according to the American
Public Transportation Association, an industry group. The Federal
Railroad Administration status report estimates that positive train
control for all consumer lines might not occur until 2020.
Railroads that miss the deadline may be subject to fines, which
the report acknowledged could be "substantial" given the expected
timeline of compliance. The FRA can assess fines per violation per
day, the report said.
Starting Jan. 1, the agency will try to bring the railroads into
compliance as quickly as possible, an FRA representative said.
AAR President and CEO Edward Hamberger said the size and scope
of the order would be "absolutely impossible" to execute by the
2015 deadline.
Railroads that miss the deadline will have to take interim
measures to "protect the public safety while bringing the railroads
into compliance quickly, completely, and safely," according to the
report.
Just three of 38 railroads had submitted their safety plans,
according to the report, which an FRA representative said was
up-to-date within the past two weeks.
The report said that Union Pacific Corp. still had to completely
equip all of its 6,532 locomotives. By the end of 2014, Union
Pacific had partially installed PTC on about two-thirds of those
locomotives, according to the railroad's website. The company had
no further comment.
The FRA report said Norfolk Southern Corp. needed to fully equip
all of its 3,400 locomotives. Susan Terpay, Norfolk Southern's
public relations director, said the railway has fully equipped 115
locomotives and partially equipped another 2,000 for PTC. She said
Norfolk Southern expects to have more than 500 locomotives fully
PTC-equipped by year-end.
CSX Corp. has equipped about 20.8% of its 3,900 locomotives,
according to the report. CSX spokeswoman Melanie Cost said about
68.6% of the company's locomotives were at least partially equipped
with PTC.
Amtrak, whose passenger train was involved in the fatal crash in
Philadelphia that killed eight people earlier this year, has fully
equipped about 85.8% of its locomotives with PTC, including 97.9%
of the Northeast corridor locomotives, according to the report.
Amtrak is on schedule to complete the full activation of PTC on
the Northeast Corridor spine by deadline, said Christina Leeds,
Amtrak's media relations manager.
Write to Lindsay Ellis at lindsay.ellis@wsj.com
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