“This technology is literally life-saving,” he said. “It prevents accidents, collisions and derailments. ... It’s enormously important in saving lives and dollars.”
Blumenthal said the technology is like a GPS for trains, slowing them if they are going too fast and stopping them if they are about to hit another train or a person on the tracks. He said the system would have saved the life of Robert Luden, 52, of East Haven, a Metro-North foreman who died in May 2013 when he was struck while working on tracks in West Haven.
Blumenthal, a strong advocate for railroad safety overall, was prompted to reiterate his strong position following a recent Federal Railroad Administration report identifying that the majority of railroads will miss the deadline, including Metro-North.
Blumenthal wrote to the Federal Railroad Administration and Metro-North Railroad regarding the “troubling information” highlighted in the report.
In a letter to FRA Acting Administrator Sarah Feinberg, Blumenthal has requested a detailed plan and explanation as to how the FRA will hold railroads accountable.
He told Feinberg the “widespread, indefinite delays are deeply disturbing.”
“Railroads need to be held accountable for their deliberate or negligent failure to comply with an existing legal deadline” set in 2008, Blumenthal wrote. “Railroads must have clear incentive to implement PTC by the December 31 deadline — which remains current law, despite ongoing debate in Congress.”
In the letter, Blumenthal asks for a disciplinary regimen that is “real and realistic with a penalty approach that recognizes good faith efforts and punishes intentional violations.”
Metro-North Railroad, which serves thousands of Connecticut commuters every day, was noted in the report as being on track to miss the deadline and is only expected to being testing PTC in 2016, and not complete installation until after 2018, according to Blumenthal’s statement.
Blumenthal said Wednesday that Metro-North received $1 billion in federal money to implement PTC and that the technology is “available, accessible, affordable.”
In his letter to Metro-North Railroad President Joseph Giulietti, Blumenthal demanded a “date certain” by which Metro-North will complete full implementation of PTC to protect passengers and workers.
Blumenthal said PTC could have prevented the deaths of hundreds — including four people who died in the Bronx in December 2013 — since the National Transportation Safety Board first recommended its installation over 45 years ago.
In a statement Wednesday, an MTA spokesman said the “MTA is moving forward as quickly as possible to install and integrate PTC technology on 1,455 rail cars and 588 route miles covering the two busiest commuter railroad systems in the country.”
“Metro-North and LIRR have made significant interim investments pursuant to recommendations from the FRA and NTSB to ensure the safety of their respective systems and are confident that they can continue to operate safely until full implementation of PTC. Portions of the system will be operational next year and the entire system will be operational by 2018. Forcing fines on the MTA and other railroads that have worked closely with the FRA to establish safe implementation timelines distracts from our joint goal of installing PTC expeditiously.”
In his letter to Feinberg, Blumenthal noted the NTSB first urged railroads to adopt PTC technology after a deadly train crash in 1969 that killed four people in Darien.
“In the many decades since, this critical, life-saving technology could have prevented hundreds of other deaths and thousands of injuries,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, FRA’s report provides little new information on how your agency ... plans to discipline railroads that fail to comply with existing deadlines.”
He notes in the letter that the report provides a general schedule of fines, the FRA has discretion in their implementation, and only vaguely cautions that penalties “could” be “substantial.”
Blumenthal goes on to say in the letter that penalties should be borne by railroads and not by states, commuters or riders. He also requests that “factual evidence” be required to show “diligent, good faith efforts of railroads to plan, finance and implement PTC by the deadline.”
In his letter to Giulietti, Blumenthal states that riders and consumers deserve to know exactly when PTC will be implemented because it will protect the lives of passengers and workers.
“The FRA report notes that some other railroads intend to meet the current deadline, but Metro-North’s completion date remains indefinite and distant, in effect tentative and open-ended,” Blumenthal wrote.
In the letters, he asked for responses from both Feinberg and Giulietti.
©2015 the New Haven Register (New Haven, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
