Senator Richard Blumenthal is calling on Metro North to take action to install Positive Train Control technology.  This follows a new report from the Federal Railroad Administration showing that next to no tangible progress has been made on implementation. 

The FRA has exempted terminal stations from implementing PTC, including Danbury and Grand Central Terminal. 

There is a December 2018 deadline to install the system.  Blumenthal says nearly a full decade since Congress first mandated this lifesaving technology, not a single Metro-North track is equipped with it. 

Blumenthal says PTC technology would have prevented four Metro-North passengers from dying at Spuyten Duyvil in December 2013, and more than 300 other deaths nationwide since 1970 when the National Transportation Safety Board first urged railroads to implement it. Despite the technology’s proven track record, PTC is operational nowhere on Metro-North’s 384 miles of track, and according to the report Blumenthal says the railroad has made little progress over the past 12 months towards installing the system.