Wednesday is voting day for Washington as the House is expected to finalize a deal that merges different rail safety bills passed by legislators. The deal would create the first major updates on rail safety rules since the adoption of the Federal Railroad Safety Authorization Act of 1994.
A provision of the deal requires the installation of positive train control systems in all freight and commuter trains. This new technology heightens the safety features of a train by engaging its brakes in case a train malfunctions or gets off-track.
The deal would also authorize billions for Amtrak. This was a decision made after legislators learned that Metrolink officials are considering the addition of a second engineer on its trains.
“I, for one, believe you have to do that, and not to do that in the wake of past accidents makes the railway very culpable,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said. Together with Sen. Barbara Boxer, Feinstein demanded that railroad officials explain why they have not yet installed the positive train control systems in their trains.
Officials with Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Metrolink, and Union Pacific said they supported the technology and are actually working on the installation. They reasoned, though, that the process takes time, especially for rail lines shared by commuter and freight trains.
The recent train wreck, dubbed as “America’s worst train crash in 15 years”, happened on a curving section of a track shared by a commuter train and freight train. Investigators said approximately four seconds was all the Union Pacific freight train engineer had to react after seeing the oncoming Metrolink train.
They also found that the Union Pacific engineer did apply the emergency brake but the Metrolink train engineer failed to do the same. At exactly 4:23 p.m., the commuter train and freight train, both traveling about 40mph, collided, killing 26 people onboard and injuring nearly 140 passengers.
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