As noted in Part 1, during the presidential campaign,
candidate Joe Biden called for "Sparking the second great
railroad revolution." Biden pledged to "make sure that
America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the
world - for both passengers and freight."
Part 2 of this series focuses on three key issues faced by the
railroad industry and how the Biden Administration could
respond.
Positive Train Control Compliance
In the rail safety arena, the outgoing Trump Administration
leaves behind a true gift to the newcomers in the form of
widespread carrier compliance with the congressional Positive Train
Control (PTC) mandate. In 2008, Congress mandated the
implementation of an automatic train control system that would
automatically stop trains when a switch is misaligned, or a train
is operating too closely behind another train ahead, as well as in
other unsafe situations. No such system existed at the time, and
the complexities of developing such
