During a U.S. Senate hearing on implementation of positive train control (PTC) on passenger rail lines on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said that the patience of members of Congress is running out.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on PTC implementation follows a series of fatal accidents that the National Transportation Safety Board concluded could have been prevented by PTC technology.
“I understand that testimony has not been particularly encouraging about our collective ability to have this requirement fulfilled by the end of the year,” Wicker said. “The chairman and ranking member’s statements indicate that, on behalf of the Congress, they’re trying to say that patience is running out.”
Congress does not want to shut down train traffic across the country, Wicker said, “but we need whoever to understand that we need to get the attention of those responsible and get a timetable that will work and avoid, I might say, a train wreck coming either figuratively or literally.”
Wicker also probed implementation of PTC on Gulf Coast passenger rail routes that were discontinued due to heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina. Amtrak President and CEO Richard Anderson testified that efforts were progressing, but operators — including CSX — still had work to do.
Anderson also testified that a primary implementation challenge has been the failure to enforce existing regulations on rail traffic preference and incremental cost rights.
“The law is there, but since 1971, but there has never been any effective enforcement over the preference action,” Anderson said. “That’s why the long distance service at Amtrak runs at massive delays.”