HR0627 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0627 LRB099 12938 GRL 36828 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Positive Train Control is a safety system of highly advanced technologies designed to automatically stop a train before certain types of accidents occur; and

WHEREAS, Positive Train Control was mandated by the United States Congress for all passenger and Class I freight railroads in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008; and

WHEREAS, Congress has mandated that Positive Train Control must be designed to prevent train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speed, unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance activities are taking place, and the movement of a train through a track switch left in the wrong position; and

WHEREAS, Positive Train Control is a sophisticated system that requires an Onboard component that would activate braking as necessary, a Wayside component that would monitor railroad track signals and circuits, a Back Office component to store all the information related to a rail network and trains operating across the network, and a Communications Network to connect components in the locomotive, cab car, back office, wayside, and base station radios; and

WHEREAS, The Positive Train Control interoperability regulation requires that any train operating on another railroad's network must communicate with the host railroad's Positive Train Control System; and

WHEREAS, The development and implementation of Positive Train Control constitute an unprecedented technological challenge on a scale never attempted in the United States rail industry; and

WHEREAS, Much of the technology needed for Positive Train Control did not even exist when the mandate became law in 2008; and

WHEREAS, The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 mandated that Positive Train Control be active on all passenger and Class I freight rail lines by December 31, 2015; and

WHEREAS, Metra is the agency that coordinates commuter rail travel throughout the greater Chicagoland area; Metra must meet the congressional requirement of Positive Train Control on its lines; and

WHEREAS, Positive Train Control is an extremely expensive, time-consuming, and technologically-demanding system to implement; and

WHEREAS, Metra has been diligent in its good faith efforts to implement Positive Train Control by the December 31st deadline; and

WHEREAS, Metra operates 11 rail lines with 241 stations within the Chicago region, which is the nation's busiest rail hub; and

WHEREAS, This complex Chicago rail network has made Metra's good faith efforts to implement Positive Train Control more difficult; and

WHEREAS, Metra has also been hampered in its efforts to implement Positive Train Control due to other technical difficulties, such as radio frequency spectrum limitations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, and also due to a lack of adequate funding support from both the federal and State levels; and

WHEREAS, The Federal Railroad Administration has said that it might force railroads that have not met the December 31st deadline to cease operations or it might impose daily fines on those railroads that are not in compliance; and

WHEREAS, Either of these actions by the Federal Railroad Administration would impose extreme hardship on Metra and the commuters who rely on Metra's services; and

WHEREAS, No commuter rail line in the United States has yet fully implemented an interoperable Positive Train Control System; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we call on Congress to extend the deadline for passenger and Class I railroads to implement Positive Train Control; and be it further

RESOLVED, That, should Congress not extend the deadline, then we call on Congress to authorize the Federal Railroad Administration to grant individual waivers to the deadline as long as a rail agency shows good faith efforts to implement Positive Train Control as determined by the Federal Railroad Administration; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the members of the Illinois congressional delegation.