Schumer urges Feds To Ensure Critical Safety System Is Installed & Immediately Implemented Along Rail Routes Throughout Upstate New York, Before It's Too Late; Lessons From Philadelphia Derailment Need To Be Applied In New York

Press Release

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today urged that a safety system called Automatic Train Control (ATC) -- which could have lessened the impacts of the recent Amtrak derailment if the safety system were operational -- be implemented along dangerous curves and routes for trains traveling throughout Upstate New York. Following last week's derailment, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) instructed Amtrak to turn ATC on at the curve in Philadelphia that caused the derailment. Schumer said that that FRA should also make sure the safety system is turned on and installed along rail lines that run throughout areas of Upstate New York, including the Hudson Valley, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.

Schumer explained that a more robust safety system called Positive Train Control (PTC) is still as many as five years away from being operational in Upstate New York. Therefore, Schumer urged FRA to work with railroads, including Amtrak and the freight lines, in the interim to ensure a less robust system called Automatic Train Control (ATC) is installed and operational where needed on all passenger rail lines. ATC, while not as effective as PTC, could still have helped slow down and lessen the impacts of the speeding Amtrak train that derailed last week, as well as the Metro-North train that derailed at Spuyten-Duyvil in 2013. Following both of those derailments FRA instructed Amtrak and Metro-North to conduct a review to ensure ATC was installed and turned on along dangerous curves on Amtrak's Washington, DC - Boston line (Northeast Corridor) and the Metro-North lines -- but no such review has happened to other rail lines throughout Upstate New York, including along the Empire Service route.

Schumer highlighted that over 1.7 million passengers travel along these lines in New York every year and that the lessons learned from the Philadelphia derailment and the Spuyten-Duyvil derailment need to be applied to the Empire Service to protect passengers and prevent future tragedies.

"When it comes to the safety of passengers and Upstate communities, we can never be too careful. While the PTC system is set to be completed on lines like the Northeast Corridor by the end of the year, in Upstate New York it's a quite different story, where PTC will not be ready for years. After the tragic derailment in Philadelphia, the FRA needs to move swiftly to ensure that ATC, an interim safety measure, is fully implemented and turned on in Upstate New York," said Senator Schumer. "It's imperative that we make sure additional safety systems like ATC are installed to mitigate the chances of another derailment. While ATC is a less robust system than PTC, it is far better than the lack of any speed controls -- like the conditions that existed on the curve in Philadelphia," said Schumer. "So I am urging the FRA to work with Amtrak and the freight railroads to determine where else outside of the Northeast Corridor -- in places like the Hudson Valley, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo -- we can install ATC and ensure it is functioning properly."

Schumer said that Positive Train Control (PTC) is a sophisticated electronic system that will help prevent future tragedies like the Amtrak crash in Philadelphia last week and the 2013 Metro-North Spuyten-Duyvil derailment. Schumer said ensuring PTC is on all tracks in the United States, including the NEC line, would be a major step forward in protecting riders from dangerous derailments. The federally mandated deadline for installing PTC is the end of this year, however railroads have continued to claim that they will miss that deadline and could need as many as five additional years to finish installation. Schumer has been pushing the railroads to install PTC more quickly, and is now also calling on the FRA to ensure interim safety measures are in place while PTC installation is still underway. Specifically, Schumer is calling on the FRA to do a top to bottom review of rail lines throughout the country, including New York's Empire Corridor, to make sure that ATC, a less robust version of PTC, is installed and operational along dangerous sections of track. In addition, Schumer has asked FRA to work with railroads to improve wayside signage and other markers that could help ensure engineers are fully aware of low speed curves and bridges.

Following the derailment in Philadelphia investigators learned that Automatic Train Control (ATC) was installed on the dangerous curve and could have helped slow down the speeding train but the system had not yet been turned on. Following the derailment FRA asked Amtrak to turn that system on along the curve and to study other curves along Amtrak's Washington, DC -- Boston line to see where else it should be turned on until PTC is fully operational. While less effective than PTC, ATC can still help improve overall safety. In addition, it can be installed much faster and at a lower cost -- and in some places, like in Philadelphia, the system is already installed and just needed to be turned on. In his letter to FRA, which was also signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Bill Nelson (D-FL), Schumer said it was an important step to review curves along the Washington, DC -- Boston route but that the FRA should not stop there and that a national review was needed to reduce the risk that this type of derailment happens on any other Amtrak line, including those in Upstate New York.

Schumer said that installing ATC should not take away from overall efforts to get the more robust PTC system up and running. Following the derailment Amtrak announced that PTC would be operational on the NEC by the end of this year, however that would only amount to 363 miles of the total 21,000 miles traveled by Amtrak trains. The remainder of the system would take far longer because in those sections, including along the Empire Corridor, Amtrak trains run along freight rail lines and those railroads have estimated that it could take another five years before it is installed.

Source