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Minor Metro North derailment prompts renewed calls for Positive Train Control technology

Following a minor Metro North train derailment on the New Haven line yesterday, officials are renewing their calls for implementation of Positive Train Control. 

 

A dozen people were injured when 5 of the train cars left the tracks around 5:15pm in Rye, New York as the passengers traveled to Connecticut.  Four people were hospitalized for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.  Eight others refused medical attention. 

 

Senator Richard Blumenthal says it's been nearly a full decade since Congress first mandated the basic technology.  He called on Metro North to investigate if PTC could have prevented or mitigated this latest incident.  Blumenthal also wants Metro North to explain how a train in a low-speed area jumped the tracks, injured passengers, and triggered delays throughout the system.  The railroad is facing a December 2018 deadline to install the technology. 

 

PTC was first urged by the National Transportation Safety Board in 1970 after a train collision in Darien. It's a GPS-based system designed to prevent certain types of train accidents caused by human factors.  In 2008, Congress mandated railroads install PTC by the end of 2015; however, Congress extended the deadline to 2020 last year.

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