Lake County Gazette

U.S. Rep. Bob Dold (R-Dist. 10) on Wednesday praised House passage of the Surface Transportation Extension Act, part of which would give train companies more time to implement federally required positive train-control safety measures.

“Implementing positive train control is vitally important to ensuring that our national rail system provides the utmost level of safety to millions of passengers around the country that depend on our railroads every day, but if the House did not act, it would have forced Metra and other commuter rail systems to shut down, crippling the daily commute for millions," Dold said.

Dold said 71 percent of the country's commuter-rail companies would not be able to implement the required safety reforms by year's end. The 2015 deadline stems from a 2008 rail-safety bill that was written before companies had the technology needed to make the changes and speculated about the companies' ability to make the changes in the future, Dold said.

If the bill passes the Senate in its current form and the president signs it into law, railroad companies will have until 2018 to implement safety reforms and will need to file progress reports along the way.