You may not be able to take NJ Transit to N.Y. Penn Station if safety system not installed

WASHINGTON — Amtrak's CEO said Thursday that it would not allow railroads such as NJ Transit to operate over its tracks after Dec. 31 if they did not have a required safety system in place by then.

Tens of thousands of NJ Transit commuters ride Amtrak's Northeast Corridor every day into New York's Penn Station.

But if NJ Transit does not install positive train control on its locomotives by the end of the year, Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson strongly suggested that its trains wouldn't be allowed to operate on the Northeast Corridor.

"We cannot permit non-compliant equipment on our railroad after the deadline," he told members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House of Representatives.

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Anderson also told lawmakers that Amtrak might have to suspend operations on host railroads that don't meet the December deadline, though those are largely outside the Northeast region.

"In the Northeast Corridor, we’re in good shape," he testified.

NJ Transit's latest quarterly progress report on positive train control shows that as of Dec. 31, 2017, only 35 locomotives and cab-control cars, which enable train operators to run the train from the end opposite the engine, had been equipped with the technology.

NJ Transit must install the system on 440 pieces of rolling stock by Dec. 31, 2018.

NJ Transit officials met with the Federal Railroad Administration last month to discuss the agency's progress toward meeting that requirement.

"They believe they can make the deadline," testified Juan Reyes, the Federal Railroad Administration's chief counsel.

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The report for the last three months of 2017 shows that NJ Transit has trained only 143 out of 1,100 employees for positive train control and does not have the system in operation on any of the 326 miles of track that will require it.

The Federal Railroad Administration has proposed a $12,000 civil penalty for the agency for failing to make adequate progress on the system. Reyes called it "a shot across the bow."

Still, lawmakers were skeptical that NJ Transit could meet the current deadline.

"What progress have they made?" asked Rep. Albio Sires, a New Jersey Democrat who represents Hoboken, the site of a fatal NJ Transit crash in September 2016.

"I know they've made some progress," Reyes replied.

"Do you expect them to ask for an extension?" asked Sires, referring to a two-year extended deadline that's possible if the railroad meets certain requirements.

"We’re going to keep working with them and pushing them," Reyes said.

Congress required railroads to install positive train control in 2008, and originally gave them until December 2015 to finish it. When it became clear that virtually no commuter or freight carrier was going to make that deadline, lawmakers gave them another three years.

The system is designed to prevent trains from exceeding appropriate speeds, running past stop signals or being routed onto the wrong track.

Robert Sumwalt, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told lawmakers that the NTSB had investigated 22 accidents since 2008 that could have been prevented with positive train control. Twenty-three people were killed in those crashes, he testified.

Sumwalt added that the NTSB is investigating two more recent crashes where it believes the system could have made a difference.

Three people were killed in December when an Amtrak Cascades train jumped the tracks in DuPont, Washington. The train was going nearly 80 mph into a curve limited to 30 mph.

Two Amtrak employees were killed this month in Cayce, South Carolina, when their train was mistakenly routed into a siding, where it struck a parked CSX freight train head-on.

Lawmakers expressed frustration that it had been 10 years since Congress required positive train control, though many of them had voted to give railroads the extra time.

"I think the American public is tired of excuses," said Rep. Jeff Denham, a California Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. "There have been too many deaths. PTC could have prevented many of them."

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a New York Democrat who represents the lower Hudson Valley, said one of his constituents was killed in a December 2013 Metro-North derailment in the Bronx that positive train control could have prevented.

Jim Lovell, an NBC audio technician, was one of four people killed when his Metro-North commuter train traveling 82 mph jumped the tracks on a 30 mph curve.

"We represent people who are losing their lives," Maloney told Reyes. "It’s your job to make sure the railroads meet these deadlines."