Page 36 - Train Control News Today

Talk about what matters right now and a total inability to focus on the thing at hand in this moment it is deal with what happened and come to conclusions. if we put the cart before the horse every single time guess what? real problems dont get solved because were going to spend our time fighting over the phony stuff. >> great to see you, chris. >> you bet. >> joining me now, robert zimmerman a democratic national committee member from new york. as i look at this and in march the senate commerce...

Affordable mass transit rather in city transit systems or passenger rail or light rail. this debate has been going on. and is going to continue to go on. >> let me ask you about the positive train control which you mentioned which the board member of the ntsb mentioned as well. a lot of people have critiqued the way that amtrak has used the money it received from the government. what guarantee do we have that had more money been given to amtrak, they would have prioritized being compliant with t...

It has been resisted by unions and by the engineers. they dont want to have a camera looking at you, but from a safety perspective, its important to have them here. >> peter i will put you on the spot. i keep hearing how ghoulish it is to bring up funding for amtraks infrastructure and i ride an amtrak train every weekend because my husband lives in boston, and last weekend the engine stopped working and power on the train went out and it took them 45 minutes to fix it and the heating and coolin...

Bill. yesterday the subcommittee, we tried to correct that within 24 hours of the accident which most likely would have prevented, with positive train control, we offered to fund that and even then, even with all that happened, republicans stuck with their ideology and every single one voted against additional investments in positive train control. why? because they needed to money to repeal the estate tax for billionaires. >> thats getting into the politics that a lot are saying are at play. no...

>> they are owned by the freight companies? >> incredibly dangerous. >> they are owned -- >> theyre the priority. >> they get priority, what were talking about the implementation of something like positive train control, that has to be done with the tracks, which the private companies have to do, amtrak cant do that by themselves. >> absolutely not. absolutely not. >> and, you know, i dont blame amtrak. first of all, our rail bed from boston to washington is so bad because its curved everywhere,...

Someone was going to offer an amendment for our side saying, you shouldnt cut it, so the bottom line is, there are people who are particularly energized about what happened yesterday in philadelphia. and they should be. but it has more to do with the broader debate about whether we should be investing in affordable mass transit rather in city transit systems or passenger rail or light rail. this debate has been going on. and is going to continue to go on. >> let me ask you about the positive tra...

Program, and then you look at how passenger rail has been starved for investment for three decades, there shouldnt be any wonder why it takes time to install these kind of safety measures. >> youre a man who would know sir. john robert smith, former amtrak board chairman chairman of transportation for america, thank you so much sir. i appreciate your time today. >> thank you, brooke. >> thank you. next it is becoming a key question here in this train derailment with safety technology as we wer...

Actually automate -- make it impossible to go above the speed into a turn. >> yeah. it takes a bit of that human element away. now what happens is the engineer will get a signal to reduce his speed. if the engineer doesnt take some type of affirmative action to do that to get into compliance, the signal system will essentially stop the train. >> and we have -- that technology exists? >> its out there, its developing and evolving, and its out there, and were still looking at it, and railroads are...

Miles an hour. we do believe that positive train control could have prevented this accident. >> so i want to talk to you about that technology in a moment. but first, the crucial point of speed that you just revealed to the american public it ak ale vat accelerated from 70 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour in less than a minute. is there any time where such acceleration would be normal or acceptable? >> it is normal during certain segments of this northeast corridor for this train to get up to ...

2008 he would have said high speed rail. they have allowed amtrak trains to drive across a 100 year old bridge in new jersey. an old car is an antique. an old bridge is a death trap. >> how do you revamp it? this positive train control was put into play in 2008. they said do it. 70,000 miles of track. its 2015, its still not done. theres a problem. >> people want to have the discussion what does amtrak have to do to fix this. ill compare this to the rangers from last night. the team can only pla...