The railroad administration said that Metro-North — which runs from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan into New York City’s northern suburbs and Connecticut — must submit plans to improve its safety and training programs, among other changes, within 60 days.

In a statement, the railroad’s new president, Joseph J. Giulietti, said that the railroad administration “has performed an important review of Metro-North operations and recommended significant improvements.” While he said the railroad would discuss the recommendations in more detail once the report was released formally, he said Metro-North was taking “aggressive actions to affirm that safety is the most important factor in railroad operations.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North, has already made several changes since the derailment. These have included modifying its signal system to enforce speed limits at certain locations; reducing speed limits in some areas to eliminate situations in which the limit drops by more than 20 miles per hour; and posting speed limit signs at higher-risk curves to remind train operators that a reduction is coming.

The authority also plans to use the railroad administration’s “close call reporting system,” which allows employees to report safety concerns anonymously.

Reversing years of gains, Metro-North’s on-time performance last year was its worst since the 1990s — a testament, officials said, to both the range of calamities that snarled service and the safety measures already pursued in their wake.

New schedules to be released this spring are expected to reflect longer commute times.

Some of the corrective actions outlined in the federal report could also have effects. Concerned with the lack of time allotted to crews to complete track work, for instance, the railroad administration called on Metro-North to analyze its train schedules “to determine if there is sufficient time for inspection and maintenance of track.”