(The following story by Joe Malinconico appeared on the Star-Ledger website on April 11. Ken Michel is Chairman of the BLET’s New Jersey State Legislative Board.)
NEWARK — NJ Transit’s pursuit of a groundbreaking rail safety project has dragged for more than eight years as experts try to fix flaws in the complex $150 million system that is supposed to prevent trains from running stop signals.
Frustrated by malfunctions in the original design, NJ Transit sent the manufacturer back to the drawing board last year and officials say they do not expect to start testing a new version until next year.
In the meantime, NJ Transit is counting on other measures to prevent trains from passing red signals, a dangerous safety violation that has occurred at least six times since November. Two weeks ago, the agency began retraining all 419 engineers, with an emphasis on the signals.
Engineers say the proposed high-tech system, known as positive train stop, or PTS, would make the rails safer.
At the earliest, NJ Transit officials said they would begin limited operation of PTS in 2007 — but that’s only if everything goes smoothly in the next round of testing. The challenge, officials say, is finding a way to integrate the new project with the railroad’s existing web of signals and safety devices, which vary from one rail line to another.
“They’re pioneering new technology here,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Lynn Bowersox said. “There’s really no off-the-shelf solution.”
“We would like to see it implemented as soon as possible,” said Ken Michel, an official with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.
Even if NJ Transit resolves its problems with PTS, the system still would not be installed on the railroad’s busiest passenger line, the Northeast Corridor. That is because Amtrak owns those tracks and is working on its own computerized safeguard for stopping trains from going through red signals.
Eventually, officials said, the two railroads plan to produce software that would allow NJ Transit trains equipped with PTS to work in conjunction with the safety system Amtrak is deploying on the Northeast Corridor.
“The idea is to give the two systems the ability to talk to each other,” Bowersox said.
Basically, this is how positive train stop would work: Transponders mounted at intervals along the tracks would send radio messages to computers aboard the trains with information about upcoming stop signals or unusual speed restrictions. If the engineer failed to respond to the computer’s warning by slowing down or stopping, the system would do it automatically.
In 1996, after three people died when a train went through a stop signal in Hudson County, NJ Transit officials said they would expedite work on the cutting-edge positive train stop system and have it on all rail lines within two years.
But they quickly ran into problems figuring out how to combine positive train stop with another safety mechanism NJ Transit had in the works, known as automatic train control.
The $50 million automatic train control system uses electrical waves instead of radio signals and does not work on trains moving less than 20 mph. In the 1996 accident, the train was traveling at just 7 mph.
NJ Transit officials are hoping to achieve unprecedented rail protection by deploying the two safety systems.
After initial setbacks, the agency was able to complete the installation of automatic train control on all lines, including the Northeast Corridor, in 2003, said Bowersox.
By then, the PTS system was in its second year of testing on a stretch of track on the Pascack Valley line.
Things were not going well. Again and again, the computers on the trains were getting false messages from the track transponders, she said. As a result, passenger trains were automatically slowing down or stopping for no reason.
By 2004, NJ Transit stopped the testing and decided the system needed a new software design. The agency also stopped making payments to its contractor, Union Switch and Signal of Pittsburgh.
So far, NJ Transit has withheld $8.5 million in scheduled payments, but the company may recoup that money when the project gets back on track, said transit officials. Union Signal officials did not return phone calls seeking comment on the project.
At the end of this year, Bowersox said, NJ Transit expects Union Signal to provide revised software for the system and testing would resume in 2006.
“Delays in implementing new technology like this are not unusual,” said Bill Vantuono, editor of Railway Age, a trade magazine. “It’s much easier to do this sort of thing on a brand new railroad than it is to try to install it on a railroad that’s fully operating, where you don’t want to compromise what’s already in place.”
“Obviously, every railroad territory poses it own unique challenges to developing and installing new technology,” said Warren Flateau, spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration.
Positive train stop, Flateau confirmed, would represent a significant improvement over other railroad safety systems now in operation. It also would work on trains traveling at any speed, unlike the automatic train control system.
Amtrak is installing its own safety system, which is similar to positive train stop. So far, Amtrak has completed installation of its system on much of the track between Trenton and New Brunswick.