MTA Metro-North announces PTC now covers 90 percent of Hudson Line

Nov. 6, 2019
Metro-North now runs the safety technology on 268 trains a day and 90 route miles.

Positive Train Control (PTC) has been extended to cover almost 90 percent of the Hudson Line on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Metro-North Railroad, according to an announcement from MTA Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi.

All Hudson Line trains, including Amtrak and CSX, are now operating under PTC between Marble Hill and Poughkeepsie, a total distance of 67 miles. PTC is a signal system safety enhancement that reduces the potential for human error to cause specific types of train collisions and derailments.

In Connecticut, trains traveling the 23-mile Danbury Branch, including all Metro-North trains and Providence & Worcester freight trains, began operating under PTC in August. Metro-North anticipates having PTC operational across its entire territory by the third quarter of 2020.

Combined, Metro-North is running the safety technology on 268 trains a day and 90 route miles. Full PTC functionality was commissioned on the Hudson Line from Croton Harmon to Poughkeepsie in September; today’s announcement represents an extension southward to Marble Hill.

“Our progress on the implementation of PTC reaffirms my confidence that Metro-North will complete the system wide roll-out by the end of 2020,” Rinaldi said. “Safety is our top priority at Metro-North, and I’m pleased to report our continued progress on this crucial initiative.”

The segment of the Hudson Line now in PTC service includes the entire length of the Hudson Line that is used by Amtrak. It also includes the Spuyten Duyvil curve, which was the site of Metro-North’s Dec. 1, 2013, derailment of Train 8808. This curve is one of five critical curves where train speeds have been automatically enforced since December 2013, a key benefit of PTC that was enacted in advance of the systemwide roll-out.

PTC is a federally mandated safety system that is designed to enhance railroad safety by eliminating the potential for human error to contribute to train-to-train collisions, trains traveling into zones where railroad employees are working on tracks, or derailments caused by a train traveling too fast into a curve or into a misaligned switch. It builds upon existing Metro-North systems such as in-cab signaling and automatic speed enforcement at critical curves and bridges. These safety measures already offer some of the most substantial functions of PTC to Metro-North customers, according to Metro-North.

Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road say they are adhering to an aggressive segment-by-segment implementation schedule that puts them on paths to complete the roll-out of PTC across their entire networks before the federal deadline of Dec. 31, 2020.