FRA: Many railroads will miss PTC mandate deadline

The Federal Railroad Administration told House lawmakers in a report that despite seven years of assistance many railroads will miss the Dec. 31 deadline to implement positive trade control.    The U.S. Transportation Department’s Federal Railroad Administration told the House Appropriations Committee in a report that despite seven years of assistance many railroads will miss the Dec. 31 deadline to implement positive trade control (PTC) in their equipment fleets.
   PTC technology prevents train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, incursions into established work zone limits and a train going to the wrong track because a switch was left in the wrong position.
   The National Transportation Safety Board began calling for train control systems as far back as 1969, and FRA was involved in setting up the PTC standards with transportation industry and safety stakeholders for more than a decade before the 2008 mandate. Three years before Congress passed the PTC mandate, FRA issued its final rule that established uniform PTC standards for railroads willing to voluntarily install the technology.
   In 2008, Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which required all Class I railroads transporting poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous or toxic-by-inhalation hazardous materials and all railroads providing passenger service to implement PTC by Dec. 31, 2015.
   “The Federal Railroad Administration will continue to use its resources and expertise to help railroads achieve the critical goal to have positive train control implemented,” FRA Acting Administrator Sarah Feinberg said in a statement.