U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., says Metro-North trains are vulnerable to the kind of tragic accident that happened in Hoboken, New Jersey, this week.
“In Connecticut we are as vulnerable to this kind of crash, due to excessive speed or driver error, because Metro-North lacks Positive Train Control, and it is absent from parts of our tracks.”
Positive Train Control automatically slows down or stops a train if its engineer misses a signal or goes over the speed limit. The National Transportation Safety Board says Positive Train Control would have prevented a deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia last May.
A federal law in 2008 mandated the installation of Positive Train Control by the end of 2015. That deadline was extended to December 2018 after several major railroads complained they would not be able to meet the original deadline.
An MTA spokesperson says Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road are on target to install the technology by 2018.