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New york to miami when it ended up on the wrong track and it slams into a administrationnary the right train. this is the third amtrak crash in less than two months. maya rodriguez is near the crash in lexington county, south carolina. this is the subject of a federal investigation. what can you tell us? >> investigators with the ntsb are here on site. they're looking at one, was this human error, and what were the mechanical conditions on the ground? the ntsb says it's possible that positive train control might have been able to prevent this crash. it's called ptc for short. it was supposed t...

Positive train control have come into play? >> well, that is going to raise the -- you know, you're absolutely right. the question of positive train control is due to be put on by 2018, amtrak was slow to put it on in the accident in washington. they were slow to put it on a number of years ago in the accident outside of philadelphia. it is not on all of their -- all of their routes. it's on the northeast corridor, and positive train control, as well as other monitoring devices monitoring equipment should have told the engineers that the track was clear or it wasn't clear. now it may have been...

Side-swipe wags. ordinarily it's a situation where the train is on the track and another train, you know, not very scientific, another train doesn't know it, particularly in the dark. and here i don't believe this track had positive train control on it. csx has 16,000 miles of train track that it has to put positive train control on. they have already spent 1.2 billion, according to their information on their website but a lot of train track they have to do. csx had to put it on -- has to put it on. the deadline has been extended to 2018. a as peter said with a possible extension two near year...

That is on the engine and they will do that on both -- both the freight train and the passenger train. and they are going to want -- if the crew members have not been injured, they are going to want to interview the crew members right away. i don't think -- i don't think this will be a -- the investigation may take a year or more, but the preliminary indication of what went on will not take very long. probably within the week or so. >> so, peter, let me ask you about positive train control because that is something mandated by congress and is supposed to be on all trains, although it had been ...

. mary skiavo is with us. talk about train control and what it is and what it does and how it works. >> positive train controlled is a computerized system that was actually mandated by congress and by the federal rail administration to have been on all trains about a year or two agency, but keep getting extensions. it's a costly system for the train companies to install. what it is is an onboard computer and sensors on tracks which tell the engineers on the trains if there is any -- any problems on the tracks up ahead. it will also automatically slow the train if the train is in an overspeed s...