In a move to enhance the safety of Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road signaling systems sooner, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board committees approved the expansion of a contract with a joint venture of Bombardier Transportation/Siemens Rail Automation by an additional $11.3 million.

RELATED:"Rail Operators Steadily Moving Toward PTC Implementation"

The Bombardier/Siemens joint venture is serving as the MTA’s Positive Train Control system integrator under a $428.5 million contract awarded last November. The contract amendment goes to the full MTA board for consideration on Wednesday.

The amended contract would expedite by up to nearly two years the retrofitting of 836 LIRR and 474 Metro-North rail cars to enable them for send and receive Positive Train Control signals. Those retrofits will now be completed by April 2017.  

The amended contract also will allow the railroads to deploy equipment at 175 locations alongside the tracks that will facilitate communication between the Positive Train Control central computers and the computers on board trains. This move will expedite by up to one year the installation of PTC on territory covering 85% to 90% of the railroads’ customers.

Positive Train Control will enhance existing train dispatching and signaling systems by automatically enforcing temporary and permanent speed restrictions and automatically stopping trains at red signals.