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Safety system cited in Philly Amtrak derailment faces new scrutiny after Hoboken crash

The deadly train crash in Hoboken, N.J., on Thursday renewed questions about the long-delayed rollout of Positive Train Control, the government-mandated rail safety system that came into the spotlight after eight people died in the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia.

The deadly train crash in Hoboken, N.J., on Thursday renewed questions about the long-delayed rollout of Positive Train Control, the government-mandated rail safety system that came into the spotlight after eight people died in the 2015 Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia.

Officials could not say that the safety system - designed to slow or stop speeding trains - would have made a difference in the rush-hour NJ Transit crash that killed one person and injured more than 100 others. Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators would look into whether Positive Train Control could have prevented the disaster.

But the accident is likely to intensify the scrutiny on rail lines like NJ Transit that have been slow to implement the system, and on Congress' decision last year to give railroads three more years to do so, setting a new deadline at the end of 2018.

"This is the kind of event that Positive Train Control is absolutely designed to prevent," Deborah Hersman, former NTSB chair, told CNN. The system can be a backup for an engineer who is distracted, tired, or suffering a medical emergency, she said.

PTC was not active in Philadelphia before the Amtrak derailment - when federal safety experts said it could have prevented the wreck - and it is not in use anywhere on NJ Transit lines.

In fact, the rail agency has made little progress installing the system since Congress mandated it in 2008. According to a June 29 progress report to the Federal Rail Administration, NJ Transit had not installed PTC equipment on any locomotives or track segments, had not trained any employees to use the system, and had none of the required radio towers in place.

"That's not a record that we want to see," Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) said Thursday after the Hoboken crash. "Personally, I don't believe there should have been an extension."

He noted that national transportation safety regulators concluded that PTC "would have intervened" to prevent a PATH train crash at the same station in 2011.

NJ Transit did not return a call for comment Thursday. The agency has targeted 2018 to install the safety systems.

Gov. Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo both urged patience Thursday, saying it was impossible to say if the safety mechanism could have stopped this crash.

"Until we know the cause of the accident, we're not going to be able to know what steps we can take in the future to avoid an accident like this," Christie said at a news conference. He said that NJ Transit's "first priority" is safety, and that the agency would work to implement any measures called for after the investigation.

Safety advocates, however, argue that lawmakers and railroads have refused to make PTC a priority, even after numerous crashes that could have been prevented. The National Transportation Safety Board has for 40 years called for PTC to be put in place, according to Dinh-Zarr.

SEPTA and Amtrak have moved faster than most rail lines, but many railroads have said they were stalled by government regulations, the challenges of procuring and installing the equipment and radio spectrum needed for the system, and the scope of covering nearly 70,000 miles of track nationwide.

Railroad allies in Congress said the extension was needed to prevent fines and legal liabilities that could have forced rail lines to shut down.

"The public transportation industry's number one priority is - and will always be - safety and security," said a statement Thursday from the American Public Transportation Association.

Opponents of the extension argued that railroads have been slow to act because they wanted to avoid the cost. Those critics pointed to Thursday's crash, even while awaiting word on the cause.

"We need Positive Train Control because we're losing too many people on these preventable crashes," Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D., N.Y.) said on CNN.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) also criticized the PTC extension - which was attached to a critical highway bill in late 2015 and approved by a voice vote, allowing it to pass without requiring lawmakers to go on record as supporting the safety delay.

President Obama signed the extension into law.

Amtrak has installed PTC on all of the rail it owns along the Northeast Corridor and on the Keystone Line between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. West of Harrisburg the tracks are owned by Norfolk Southern, and are not adapted for PTC.

SEPTA has installed the key equipment and trained its workers, and has PTC running on 41 out of 120 miles of track as of its last progress report - far more than most other railroads, Federal Rail Administration data show.

Seven of SEPTA's 13 Regional Rail Lines have PTC activated, and three more lines should have it by year's end, said SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch. The Paoli/Thorndale, Trenton, and Wilmington/Newark Lines won't likely be equipped until next year, because those routes share track with Amtrak and require coordination.

The extension Congress passed last year arrived just months after the Philadelphia Amtrak crash, in which the train was traveling at more than twice the speed limit before it derailed on a curve. As the NTSB released its report on that incident, the board chairman, Christopher Hart, urged railroads to act faster.

"The deadline that really matters is not 2018," he said in May. "The deadline that really matters is the date of the next PTC-preventable tragedy."

jtamari@phillynews.com

@JonathanTamari

www.philly.com/capitolinq