One of the major issues that has come up about Amtrak service is the lack of an emergency braking system called Positive Train Control (PTC). That system would have prevented Philadelphia's fatal derailment in 2015, and it appears it would have also prevented a derailment in December 2017 near Tacoma, Wash. Anderson suggested he might cease Amtrak operations on tracks that do not have PTC in place, or well on the way to operation, by the end of the year. About 72 percent of the rail carrier's national network operates on rails not owned by Amtrak. He also noted one percent of Amtrak's routes, tracks in Maine, Indiana, New York, and Quebec, are on tracks that are not required by a federal mandate to have PTC installed. He said he was looking at options to make those routes safer, including abandoning them.