of-way employees was not required to be reported. The reporting procedures have been changed in very recent years, and we are now getting a much larger reporting of the whole picture, but an accidentand I am not an authority, Mr. Macdonald, as to just on this scorebut Mr. Homer advises me that a train accident is reported when the damage exceeds $750.

And also, it is reportable if an employee is injured and is absent from duty for a period of 24 hours or more, or a casualty.

Mr. MACDONALD. I just think that is a fantastic number of accidents, really, and I subscribe to your statement.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions of this witness?

Mr. BROWN. I have a question.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brotzman ?

Mr. BROTZMAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I have one quick question. Our society seems to be pretty well oriented to radio and television type of communications, as you will readily acknowledge, and I want to be sure I understand.

Is it your position that radio should not be used at all in communications, or is it that the technique is imperfect? Would you respond to that?

Mr. CROTTY. I think that at this point in time, sir, the radio could be used to supplement the protection that has been furnished by proven methods in the past, which is the use of flagmen, the use of train order, written train order. That the radio could be used to supplement these practices, to improve railroad operations where it would contribute in that manner, but that it should not be used as a substitute.

Mr. BROTZMAN. You are talking about some combination of existing practices, plus radio?

Mr. CROTTY. Yes.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Your answer to my question is, then, you think that radio should be used to some extent, right?

Mr. CROTTY. I think it may have its place as a supplement, rather than as a substitute.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions on this side?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, may we correct the record in one respect? Something was said yesterday, just very short.

The CHAIRMAN. Surely.

Mr. BERNSTEIN. Well, we were asked the question, I believe by Mr. Adams, but I am not certain about this, as to whether, either under the administration bill or our proposed amendments, railroad crossings would be covered. I gave an incorrect answer. Under our amendments, it would not be covered. It is questionable whether it would be covered under section 3 (a) (1) of the administration bill.

Mr. ADAMS. Would the chairman yield for a moment on that?

I think that was my question yesterday, and I just want to be certain that by your testimony the railroad crossings are not covered under the present bill, or your amendments; is that correct?

Mr. BERNSTEIN. It is not covered under our proposed amendments. There is question in my mind as to whether it is covered under the broad language of section 3 (a)(1).

Mr. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROWN. I have a question, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brown.

Mr. BROWN. Is it your idea that if this legislation is passed, we will wind up with Government track inspectors walking the railbeds to see both ties and track are adequately maintained?

Mr. CROTTY. No, I wouldn't envision that that would be the final development, Mr. Brown, but I would hope that some Federal body would require that the railroads themselves adequately police their property and maintain it in what we believe would be a safe condition. Mr. BROWN. How would this be done?

Would it be done by a certification from the railroad?

Mr. CROTTY. First, the railroads would have to be required to set up a work procedure which would entail inspection at specified periods of time, and then the results of this inspection would have to be reported to some governmental agencies, to assure that its laws or regulations were carried out.

Mr. BROWN. But you do not envision Federal inspection of the railbeds?

Mr. CROTTY. No.

Mr. BROWN. And the inspection would be conducted, then, as it is now, by railroad employees?

Mr. CROTTY. This is generally true. It might be that inspection by some governmental agency, where accidents had resulted in casualties, might be desirable.

Mr. BROWN. Do you envision that this would require more employees on railbed inspection?

Mr. CROTTY. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. A more frequent rail bed inspection, or a more thorough railbed inspection? I am not sure I understand.

Mr. CROTTY. I think it would be both more frequent and more thorough.

The CHAIRMAN. Any questions here?

Mr. Kyros?

Mr. KYROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Crotty, I want to commend you for a very clear statement. Let me ask you this, sir. Is the legislation before us necessary to enact in its present form in order to get safety regulations in the railroad industry? Isn't it possible, perhaps through negotiations between labor and management, to achieve the same thing?

Mr. CROTTY. Well, the railroads have been operating for over a century in this country, and most of these railroad brotherhoods, including my own, have been existent for almost that length of time, and we have not been able to achieve this worthy objective through collective bargaining.

And it would appear that some allover regulation is needed, so it would apply alike on all railroad properties, rather than be confined to the separate railroad properties.

Mr. KYROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kuykendall?

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I will be brief, since I do think that the area that you covered is so terribly important. I regret that we don't have an extra 2 hours, but I see we don't, Mr. Chairman.

First, could we have just maybe a candid observation here? I don't think anything but a bus meets qualifications that you suggested for the hauling of employees, so wouldn't it be best just to go ahead and say that we are speaking of a station wagon or a bus, plus a truck, to haul the crew?

So that we can better understand it? I believe when you got through with all this, you have defined a bus, have you not!

Mr. CROTTY. It would certainly be very desirable for the employees to be transported in a conveyance such as a bus, rather than in a covered truck.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I think by the time you got through spending that much money on a truck, you had better buy a bus, you would probably be better off. I am not being critical, I just think that is what you have defined, and I believe it would be clearer to us if you would go ahead and call it that.

Mr. CROTTY. I would be very happy if we could end up with something resembling a bus for transporting employees.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right, now, real quickly, and here is something that my guess is that you are going to probably want to submit in writing.

In the pamphlet-and I seem to have lost my little picture pamphlet that you had yesterday-since well over half of the pictures viewed are roadbed fault, one way or the other, roadbed fault, other than crossing accidents, killing people in cars, this is obviously one of the biggest areas of accidents, it seems to me we could have possibly five areas of possible fault here.

You either have a faulty piece of steel, or faulty installation, or faulty inspection, or faulty followup of inspection, or faulty workmanship of correcting the inspection, after it was made.

Now, that is five different places that is could happen. The thing I would like to have you say, here is where I think you will probably want to come back with your answer. I would like to know whether you feel that your people doing inspecting are capable of doing adequate jobs.

I don't want to imply negligence on either side of any issue, because I think everybody in the railroads has a concern for life and limb, but I want to know if you feel that possibly you need more crews for inspection, and more training for inspection, and I would like to have, maybe, some extensive answers to this, and not just something we can do in 5 minutes.

Mr. CROTTY. I would be very glad to submit the material requested. (The information requested was not available at time of printing.) Mr. KUYKENDALL. Because the inspection of the railbed is obviously very important, and what we do with the inspection report once we get it, and whether or not it is a good inspection report, and whether or not the man that corrects it is capable of correcting it.

These are the type of answers I would like to see.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Skubitz.

Mr. SKUBITZ. Mr. Crotty, you were asked a question I wanted to pursue. I also believe in providing protection for the employees, but it seems to me that some of the things that you suggest may be just a bit unreasonable.

Is it unusual, in business, for the employees and the equipment to be taken on the same truck? Is this an unusual practice?

Mr. CROTTY. It is very unusual, in any other industry that I am familiar with.

Mr. SKUBITZ. I see the Pepco truck go by every day, with their workers and also with their equipment on the truck. Firemen go to fires on trucks with their equipment.

Mr. CROTTY. Well, the employees that you referred to, the type of truck that you refer to, the employees are seated on fixed seats. They are not being transported in an open bodied truck.

Mr. SKUBITZ. I have seen them in open bodied trucks, too.
Mr. CROTTY. Well, I say that is a very unsafe practice.

Mr. SKUBITZ. I appreciate the fact. I want to see reasonable safety as well as you do, but I sometimes wonder how far does reasonableness go in this sort of thing.

Mr. CROTTY. It should go far enough to insure that the employee's life will not be placed in jeopardy.

Mr. SKUBITZ. Well, look at some of the accidents you are talking about here. Here a fellow, for example, a section man fell from a truck, while sweeping out a bed. Now that could happen to anyone.

Here is another example. Truck struck by a bus. That could happen on any highway. This is not unusual. I was parked down in front of the Willard Hotel, and a fellow smashed into the rear end of my car. I would like to see you fellows come forward with reasonable suggestions.

Mr. CROTTY. Well, I would believe that if a vehicle that was transporting employees broke down on the highway, if we had something resembling a bus, employees would stay seated, where they were being transported.

Mr. SKUBITZ. Well, if you were president of the Firemen's Union, would you suggest the firemen go to the fire in buses?

Mr. CROTTY. All of the equipment on the fire truck is fastened down. I have never known of a fireman to be killed or injured by material that was being transported in the same truck reeling around and killing him.

And we have had many instances when the members of my union have been killed because of things like this happening.

Mr. SKUBITZ. You state that class I railroads used 400,000 tons of new rails in 1967 and dropped to 200,000 tons in 1966.

Was that due to a discontinuance of lines where rails were not needed?

Mr. CROTTY. NO; primarily, this is attributed to the fact that the railroad's maintenance program is geared to their budget.

Mr. SKUBITZ. Well, is that an unusual procedure? Don't you and I do the same thing in life?

Mr. CROTTY. Well, this is a factor that has to be considered, yes. But it would seem to me that a much larger share of a railroad's gross operating revenues could be more properly spent to insure the safety of employees, rather than for other purposes.

Mr. SKUBITZ. I wish we had more time, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Crotty.

Mr. CROTTY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions?

If not, we will have the next witness.

I want to thank you, Mr. Crotty. I think you have given a very good statement, a very competent statement for the record, and helped to make the record for us for consideration.

Our next witness will be Mr. Louis W. Menk, president of the Northern Pacific Railway, appearing for the Association of American Railroads.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, may I welcome Mr. Menk to the committee? Mr. Menk is a native Coloradan. His many accomplishments, rather uniformly recognized, both by the forces of management and by labor, in behalf of the railroad industry, have taken him to other parts of the country.

Yet, as I said before, he is a native Coloradan, and we are glad to claim him.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

I am glad to know that he is a Coloradan.

We welcome you, and you may proceed with your statement.

STATEMENT OF LOUIS W. MENK, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY CO., REPRESENTING THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS

Mr. MENK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressmen.
Thank you, Mr. Brotzman.

My name is Louis W. Menk, and I am president and chief executive officer of the Northern Pacific Railway. Prior to being elected to this position, I was president and chief executive officer of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, in Chicago, and before going to Burlington, I was president and chairman of the board in the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Co. in St. Louis, Mo.

I am appearing here today as a witness on behalf of the Association of American Railroads in opposition to H.R. 16980.

I feel sure that all members of this committee are familiar with the AAR. It is a voluntary nonprofit association, composed of almost all the class I railroads in the United States. Its members also include numerous smaller roads. It represents its members in matters of common concern, such as the bill now before you.

Because H.R. 16980 is a safety bill, I think it appropriate that I say a few words about our industry's attitude toward safety before talking specifically about the bill itself.

In his letter of transmittal which accompanied the bill when it was delivered to the President of the Senate, the Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Boyd, said that in proposing this legislation, "the Department does not suggest that the railroad industry is insensitive to its responsibility for safe operations." Now, if that statement was intended to recognize the activities and achievements of the railroad industry in the area of safety, then it falls far short of according the degree of recognition to which our activities and achievements are entitled.

Since my schooldays in Denver, I have devoted my entire life to the railroad industry. Thirty-one years ago I was employed by the Union Pacific as a messenger and telegrapher. In 1940, I went to the Frisco and with that road served as telegrapher dispatcher, trainmaster, terminal trainmaster, superintendent, assistant superintendent of