New Jersey commuter train was going too fast. Positive train control can prevent that | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Investigators now know that a commuter was traveling at twice the appropriate speed when it crashed into the station in Hoboken, New Jersey, last week, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others.

The information appears to confirm that the crash could have been prevented by a safety system called positive train control, which keeps trains from exceeding appropriate speeds or running past stop signals.

Railroads were supposed to install the system nationwide by the end of last year, but Congress extended the deadline three years after railroads said they wouldn’t be ready.

The train was going 21 mph when it crashed into the bumping post at the station on Friday morning, according to data the National Transportation Safety Board downloaded from one of the train’s two event recorders.

The event and video recorders in the forward part of the train were inaccessible for several days because of the debris surrounding the train’s control cab from the station’s collapsed canopy.

Another event recorder in the train’s locomotive was not working the day of the crash.

Excessive speed was a factor in two other recent fatal train accidents in the Northeast.

▪ In December 2013, a Metro-North commuter train sped into a 30 mph curve at 82 mph north of New York City. It derailed, killing four passengers and injuring about 60 others.

▪ In May 2015, an Amtrak train jumped the tracks north of Philadelphia at 106 mph on a curve limited to 50 mph. Eight people were killed and more than 200 others were injured.

In the wake of both accidents, the NTSB renewed its call for positive train control, which could have automatically slowed the trains to the appropriate speed at each location.

Both Metro-North and New Jersey Transit have reported to the Federal Railroad Administration that their systems will be installed by the end of 2018.

Currently, neither commuter train network has positive train control on any of its routes.

Amtrak has installed the system on the track it owns in Michigan and the Northeast, including the site of last year’s Philadelphia crash.

Congress required positive train control in 2008 after a Metrolink commuter train collided with a freight train in southern California, killing 25 people.

Metrolink has reported to federal regulators that it will finish installing its system this year.

The NTSB made positive train control one of its top safety priorities in 2015.