It was a federal order for Amtrak trains, and it came from the Federal Railroad Administration last week. The Federal Railroad Administration officially outlined the orders to Amtrak via Facebook. The order is for Amtrak to begin an action plan to use new speed control technology in the Northeast Corridor. This order comes after the shocking Philadelphia derailment.
The technology, called Automatic Train Control (ATC) Technology, is already used by Amtrak on its southbound trains that run in the Northeast Corridor. However, now Amtrak will have to extend the technology to the northbound trains, as well.
The object of the tech system is to alert the train engineer when a train goes above the speed limit. If the speed is above the limit, then the train’s brakes will be applied, even if the engineer does not do so manually.
Also, the Federal Railroad Administration is calling for a thorough analysis of the curves of the Corridor and for Amtrak to add more signs along the track. As the corridor is very busy with traffic, the signs are intended to show engineers and other train operators the speeds for the area.
These are safety measures to help prevent future incidents that have the devastation of the Philadelphia one that recently occurred. The crash occurred when an Amtrak train heading from Washington to New York went off the tracks when its speed upped from 70 mph to 106 mph without a seeming reason to do so. Eight people died, and over 200 were injured by the incident. The investigation is ongoing into the reasons behind the crash, and full details have not yet been released.
Technology on trains, such as the new speed control technology discussed above, will hopefully minimize train derailment and save lives when Amtrak fully installs it shortly.