>Many accounts here and in other news outlets mentioned that the older type of ATC hardware was in place in the segment and direction where the wreck occurred, and was in place on the locomotive, but that it was not in service at the time on the route segment in the direction of travel where the wreck happened. Amtrak carefully pointed out that the ATC was in service when the line was reopened. So it's not an accusation - simply part of an incomplete picture.

The problem with all the media accounts is that they completely fail to clarify the acronyms. The PRR installed cab signals before WWII (the system's design dates from c1930), and this system has always had speed enforcement capabilities. My impression of the PRR installation is, based on a detailed study of the same system for another RR and a few cab rides with conversations with the engineers, indicates that speed enforcement capability is inherent. The catch is, that speed enforcement is not so much in the wayside apparatus but in the locomotive. For example, the MP-54s had cab signals but no penalty application enforcement, the GG1s -an presumably the P-5As- did.

From what I've gathered from reading numerous posts (given all the armchair whynchas and sexperts, winnowing out all the BS and misinformation does become difficult) this section of the NEC still has this pre-War system -- and I can tell you from personal experience that the FRA would not allow "turning it off".

At some point in the 1950s/1960s, or thereabouts, the PRR (or PC) tweaked the wayside apparatus so that a clear code indication in the rails instructed the apparatus on the locomotive to display (and enforce) a lower speed when approaching this section of RR. The problem is that this was oriented toward freights and was done only for one direction on one or two of the four tracks.

The question is: excessive speed has already been recognized as a potential problem in this area, so why wasn't this done on for both directions and on all four tracks? This is what the FRA has been inquiring about and has ordered Amtrak to do. Nothing was "turned off" because it wasn't "turned on" in the first place.

And before you say there's no difference between the two situations, there is: for the FRA to order it to be installed (and "turned on") without some pressing, proximate reason (like Gunpow and Chatsworth) is called "preemptive governmental action", which is what has everyone so stirred up about regarding quagmire of environment impact reports and that type of thing. Our entire governmental system has been reactive, and believe you me I don't want a preemptive one because that begins to wander into the realms of things like Stalinism and command economies.

The big difference between that 1930 design and what Amtrak has been upgrading to over the last several decades is more flexibility with speed changes sent to the locomotive and the enforcement thereof.