According to new Federal Railroad Administration data, the US’ three busiest commuter railroads continue to lag behind in installing sophisticated train-control technology. The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR ), New Jersey Transit and Metro-North all made scant progress on implementing GPS-based positive-train control in the quarter ending on 30 September. Over the last three months, the LIRR and Metro-North have trained more employees on the system, the data shows, but neither they nor NJ Transit installed it on any tracks.
The railroads say the federal data doesn’t fully reflect their progress and that they are still on track to meet a December 2018 deadline to install the technology.
The LIRR and Metro-North say they’ve installed PTC equipment on more than 300 train cars and placed more than 2,000 transponders along their tracks. NJ Transit says it’s awaiting federal approval to acquire a slice of required radio spectrum and has testing scheduled for next year on a 6-mile stretch of track.
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