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Rail Safety Reform On Fast-Track To Vote

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The Associated Press

Published: September 24, 2008

WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators reached a deal Tuesday on a major railroad safety reform bill that will require new technology to prevent crashes and limit hours engineers can work.

The deal, expected to be brought to a vote in the House today, follows a collision between a commuter train and a freight train that killed 25 people in Los Angeles on Sept. 12.

Those fatalities - the nation's worst in a train crash since 1993 - spurred lawmakers to reach consensus as Congress prepares to recess at the end of this week. Lawmakers hope to move the package through the Senate before then.

The package also wraps in legislation authorizing billions for Amtrak.

The legislation would enact the first major updates to rail safety rules since passage of the Federal Railroad Safety Authorization Act of 1994.

That law expired in 1998 and the train oversight and safety agency, the Federal Railroad Administration, has been operating under the expired law because Congress had not acted.

Among the provisions of the deal, according to congressional aides, is a requirement for the installation by 2015 of technology that can engage the brakes if a train misses a signal or gets off track. The so-called positive train control technology would be required on all rail lines that carry passengers and on freight lines that carry hazardous materials.

The technology has been a major point of contention between Congress and the railroads and Federal Railroad Administration. While insisting they support the technology, which is currently installed only on portions of the Northeast Corridor, the railroads and the railroad administration have opposed a congressionally mandated timeline.

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