The Federal Railroad Administration is worried that both the MTA and NJ Transit are falling behind on installing life-saving technology and that the agencies will miss the government-set, end-of-year deadline.
The Post has obtained a letters the FRA sent to Metro-North president Catherine Rinaldi on Tuesday demanding that she get the agency on the ball get Positive Train Control up and running by Dec. 31.
“The purpose of this letter is to express FRA’s concerns regarding Metro-North Commuter Railroad’s progress towards fully implementing a PTC system, with fewer than 9 months remaining until the statutory deadline, and to stress the urgency of timely compliance with this critical rail-safety mandate,” reads the missive from FRA administrator Ronald Batory.
The FRA sent a similarly-worded letter to NJTransit, a source close to the FRA said.
PTC is a GPS-based system that uses on-board electronics and transmissions from track-side signals and radio towers to automatically apply brakes if speeding trains are in danger of derailing or crashing.
Congress ordered PTC installation on major US rail lines following a 2008 Los Angeles train collision that killed 25 people, but federal lawmakers provided no funding, leaving railroads and their riders to foot the bill.
Railroads were initially given until Dec. 31, 2015, but two months before the deadline it was extended for at least three years. Part of the problem in hitting the deadline was that all of the railroads only had one or two manufacturers to chose from, making it impossible to get equipment on time.
MTA board member Neal Zuckerman on Wednesday echoed the FRA’s concerns and said finishing positive train control by the end of the year on both the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North is “in question.”
But MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said later in the day that he’s sure the job will get done.
NJTransit officials said they had not yet received the letter.