Plan for Automatic Braking on Trains in Northeast Advances
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole said Wednesday she is going ahead with a plan requiring Northeast corridor locomotives to carry devices that automatically would stop trains moving at unsafe speeds.
The long-debated proposal, unless modified during a 30-day comment period, means that Conrail, the Delaware & Hudson, Providence & Worcester and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority must fit their locomotives with special receivers.
The receivers would decode a signal emitted by the rail. If the engineer ignored a signal to reduce speed, the train’s brakes would be applied automatically.
An Amtrak-Conrail collision last January near Chase, Md., killed 16 people. In the accident, investigators said the Conrail train slid through signals telling it to slow down or stop and went into the path of the 12-car Amtrak train.
All Amtrak locomotives already are equipped with automatic train control devices.
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