Sen. Richard Blumenthal this morning unveiled legislation to speed up introduction of Positive Train Control on passenger rail lines and tracks that carry crude oil or ethanol.
Positive Train Control, mandated by Congress in 2008, “is a little bit like GPS for trains,’’ said Blumenthal in an interview. “It knows where trains are, what track conditions are, what speeds are appropriate for those conditions, or if there’s a train on the same track going in the opposite direction.’’
If so, he said, PTC “will stop them.’’ Accidents such as the 2013 Metro North derailment around a sharp curve at Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx “would have been prevented’’ by PTC, he added.
The Blumenthal bill, co-authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is the latest installment in a long-running saga over train accident-prevention technology. For decades, PTC has ping-ponged back and forth between safety advocates, Congress, the FRA and the railroads, with little to show for the $5.2 billion the industry says it has invested in the technology.
The Blumenthal-Feinstein bill is a counter to bipartisan legislation introduced last month by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that would delay the December 31, 2015, deadline for PTC installation until 2020.
In contrast, the Blumenthal-Feinstein proposal would allow the Federal Railroad Administration to grant one-year deadline extensions to railroad lines on a case-by-case basis until 2018.
It would also require PTC on any rail line used by tanker cars carrying oil such as Bakken crude from North Dakota or ethanol. In February, a 109-car train carrying 3 million gallons of Bakken oil burst into flames after derailing in West Virginia.
It would also beef-up protections of rail employees in work zones along tracks and require commuter railroad employees to inspect tracks and sidings at various intervals. And it would direct the Department of Transportation to study ways to use PTC and other technologies to reduce hazards at roadway rail crossings.
A Hearst Newspapers account last year of PTC showed the Federal Railroad Administration had a long history of playing footsy with the railroad industry, with one FRA official in 2004 saying the benefits of PTC “are small relative to the costs.’’
Congress did little until 2008, the year a Southern California commuter train collided with an on-coming freight engine, killing 25 and injuring 135.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 mandated PTC on all rail lines by the end of 2015. it is that deadline that forms the battle line between Blumenthal and Feinstein on the one hand, and Blunt and Democrats including Sens. Clair McCaskill, D-Mo., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. on the other.