Sen. Schumer stumps for $33M PTC grant along Hudson line

FRA Administrator Feinberg with Sen. Charles Schumer discussing Positive Train Control.

USDOT

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) hosted Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Administrator Sarah Feinberg in Schenectady Oct. 19 to tour tracks and make the case for a $33-million grant for Positive Train Control (PTC).

During a visit to the Capital Region, Sen. Schumer told Administrator Feinberg the federal investment would allow New York State (NYS) to implement PTC on the tracks that it leases between Poughkeepsie and Amsterdam.

“Simply put, Positive Train Control is a life saver. Once put into action, PTC can help prevent fatal crashes and derailments – and so it’s of the utmost importance that all of our rail lines have this life-saving technology installed as soon as possible. I helped establish a federal grant fund to help pay the cost of PTC implementation in cases where governments and taxpayers would have to bear the brunt of the expense,” said Sen. Schumer. “This section that NYS leases from CSX, is exactly what we had in mind when we created the fund and that’s why I’m pushing the FRA to immediately approve the major, $30 million federal investment that is needed to make sure Capital Region residents are neither passed over in this major safety overhaul nor left holding the bag for these desperately needed improvements.”

Amtrak’s Hudson Line runs from New York City, up through the Hudson Valley and into the Capital Region, where it then turns west and proceeds on to Buffalo, N.Y. and beyond. Metro-North, which operates the New York City to Poughkeepsie section of track, has already set up its own plan and timeline for implementing PTC. In addition, CSX, which operates the section of track that runs from the city of Amsterdam in Montgomery County on to Western New York, has also put in place its plans to implement the life-saving technology.

However, the portion of track from Poughkeepsie to the area between Schenectady and Amsterdam (called “Hoffmans”) is leased by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) from CSX, since it is primarily used for Amtrak passenger service rather than CSX freight service. Sen. Schumer explained that this means taxpayers would be forced to shoulder the cost of PTC implementation if NYSDOT were to simply undertake the project the way a private company would. Sen. Schumer also noted that installing PTC on this line is even more critical given that it was one of the federally-designated high-speed rail corridors where trains travel at speeds of up to 110 mph.

Amtrak trains carried more than two million passengers through New York State this past fiscal year. In Fiscal Year 2015, the Albany/Rensselaer station was ranked as the 9th highest (out of 500 stations) in the nation when it comes to ridership. According to Amtrak, it sees a ridership of roughly 825,353 people per year. The Schenectady station was ranked 131st and sees an annual ridership of 58,551 people.

FRA has provided more than $716 million to railroads to implement PTC and also awarded a nearly $1 billion loan to MTA’s Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road for the technology.