The Federal Railroad Administration
boasts on its website that it makes available $10.1 billion in funding,
together with its 33 partners in state governments and the District of
Columbia, for construction of high speed intercity passenger railway projects,
yet more than seven years after Congress mandated installation of Positive
Train Control technology on existing rail passenger and hazardous freight rail
routes, the federal government has not appropriated a single dime of funding to
provide for safety of rail passengers in the Boston/Washington corridor, or for
those citizens living in the vicinity of railbeds which daily carry tons of
flammable and otherwise hazardous cargo around our nation. Following the May 12
fatal derailment in Philadelphia, FRA Acting Administrator Sarah Feinberg
ordered Amtrak to implement the simple expedient of installing more speed limit
signs along the northbound tracks where the train traveling over 100 m.p.h.
flew off a curve. In her statement announcing this initiative, Feinberg
described the speed limit signs as “just initial steps” toward preventing
similar disasters in the future.
If there is no money for installation
of PTC technology along existing railroad rights of way where millions of
citizens already ride the rails at speeds up to 100 m.p.h, how can we expect
new intercity railroad routes built to handle even greater train speeds to be
safe when they are in service?
