Congress enacted the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to ensure commuters greater protection aboard trains. At its core, the law requires Positive Train Control, or PTC technology, to be installed on most railroads across the United States. Initially, the deadline was 2015, but Congress has now extended it to December 2018. Read more…
Train companies are slowly making the $15 billion dollar investment in Positive Train Control, or PTC, to comply with the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act. Members of Congress initially required railroads implement PTC by 2015, but extended the deadline to 2018 after several major operators said they wouldn’t make it and threatened Read more…
With the deadline of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 extended to December 2018, Metrolink leads the nation as the first commuter rail to run Positive Train Control, or PTC, systemwide. In its official report of the 2008 Metrolink Chatsworth crash, the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, cited that PTC’s GPS Read more…
The National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, investigates all railroad collisions in the United States and issues a report after each review. Since 1996, those analyses are online, including the 83-page detailed description of the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink crash. As Patricia Nazario reports live from the crash, the horrific accident Read more…
For the most part, trains that move passengers and cargo on railroads across the United States only follow a red light safety system that became the industry standard more than 150 years ago. The National Transportation Safety Board has long urged railroad officials to invest in Positive Train Control, or PTC, Read more…
As the 2018 federal deadline looms for Positive Train Control, or PTC, the rail industry continues spending millions on lobbyists on Capitol Hill to persuade lawmakers to delay and weaken the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act, which amounts to a $15-billion dollar investment for railroad companies. The federal law requires most Read more…