Frustrated lawmakers are urging stiff penalties for U. S. railroads that miss a Dec. 31 deadline for switching on speed control systems that investigators say could’ve prevented a spate of recent deadly crashes.
FILE – In this May 18,2015, file photo, pallbearers carry the casket of Rachel Jacobs, a 39-year-old educational software executive who was among eight passengers killed when an Amtrak train from Washington to New York derailed in Philadelphia on May 12, to a hearse after her funeral service in Southfield, Mich. Gilda Jacobs, Rachel’s mother, told a U. S. Senate committee Thursday, March 1,2018, she is seething over the prospect of more delays in installing speed controls, known as positive train control or PTC, that could’ve prevented the wreck and dozens of others.
