The Nation - News from Jan. 16, 1987

Automatic braking equipment should be mandatory on all freight locomotives sharing tracks with passenger trains in the busy Northeast rail corridor, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Federal safety experts have said that such devices likely would have prevented the collision of a Conrail locomotive and an Amtrak passenger train in which 16 people were killed and 175 injured. John Riley, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, has said the agency is exploring whether the automatic brakes, which already are on Amtrak passenger trains in the corridor, should be required on freight locomotives as well.