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Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi announced that “Positive Train Control” has been extended to cover nearly 90 percent of the Hudson Line. All Hudson Line trains, including Amtrak and CSX, are now operating in Positive Train Control for the 67 miles between Marble Hill and Poughkeepsie.
According to the MTA, Positive Train Control is a signal system safety enhancement that reduces the potential for human error to cause specific types of train collisions and derailments.
In Connecticut, trains traveling on the 23-mile Danbury Branch, including all Metro-North trains and area freight trains, began operating in Positive Train Control over the summer.
A Metro-North spokesperson said the MTA anticipates having Positive Train Control operational across its entire territory by the end of 2020.
“Our progress on the implementation of Positive Train Control reaffirms my confidence that Metro-North will complete the system-wide roll-out by the end of 2020,” Rinaldi said in a statement. “Safety is our top priority at Metro-North, and I’m pleased to report our continued progress on this crucial initiative.”
MTA noted that “Positive Train Control is a federally mandated safety system that is designed to enhance railroad safety by eliminating the potential for human error to contribute to train-to-train collisions, trains traveling into zones where railroad employees are working on tracks, or derailments caused by a train traveling too fast into a curve or into a misaligned switch.
“It builds upon existing Metro-North systems such as in-cab signaling and automatic speed enforcement at critical curves and bridges. These safety measures already offer some of the most substantial functions of PTC to Metro-North customers.”
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