FEDERAL STANDARDS FOR RAILROAD SAFETY TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1968 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Harley O. Staggers (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We have, this morning, a continuation of the hearings on H.R. 16980; and, at this time, Mr. Menk has returned to answer any questions that might be asked him, so if he would take the stand, please. FURTHER STATEMENT OF LOUIS W. MENK, PRESIDENT, NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY, APPEARING ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS; ACCOMPANIED BY WILLIAM M. MOLONEY, GENERAL COUNSEL Mr. MENK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. I hope you have not been inconvenienced by this bad weather. Sorry you did have to come back and we hope we won't be too long. Mr. MENK. It is quite all right, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Friedel, do you have any questions? Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Menk, I thought you were a very good witness, and your statement was very fine. One thing went through my mind that I would like to clear up, and I hope you have the figures. Well, let me put my question first. Do you have the figures for the railroads, all the railroads, of accidents per year, or an average? The reason I am asking that question, I just want to know if the railroads would be better off by having a safety rule, and I am trying to get a figure of what would be the costs of the safety rules that this bill proposes, and the overall money that is paid out now. Mr. MENK. How much money is paid out per year? Mr. FRIEDEL. Per year, on an average. If you have a figure. Mr. MENK. I don't have that figure. I am sure, Mr. Friedel, that we can make it available to the committee. I have no overall figure on how much money was paid out per year. Mr. FRIEDEL. I know this, that even if we put all the safety rules in, when you try to compare the dollars that are spent, that it would not prevent any accidents. There would still be accidents but I am trying to get the picture in my mind so the committee will know what overall dollars you spend, and then what the overall picture might be if this bill is passed. Mr. MENK. Well, I am sure, sir, that we can get you a figure from the industry as to the moneys expended as a result of personal injuries on the railroads. I might say that I know of no way that you could measure that against what this cost of this bill would be, because I have seen no really firm estimate of how much this program would cost, but if you would like, why, we will ask-isn't this right, Tom? We will ask Mr. Goodfellow to prepare an exhibit which will give you this information. (The information requested follows:) Hon. HARLEY O. STAGGERS, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS, Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: At the hearing on H.R. 16980 held on May 28, Mr. Menk undertook to furnish, in response to a question from Congressman Friedel, the overall cost to the railroads "as a result of personal injuries on the railroads." No particular year was specified and we therefore have used 1966, the latest year for which final figures are available. During that year the railroads reported $108,492,202 as personal injury (casualty) expenses. This amount cannot be directly equated with casualties sustained during the year, since some part of the total represents costs paid or accrued in 1966 by reason of casualties sustained in previous years. The Committee should be aware that, under the accounting system prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, this total includes a number of cost items in addition to payments made to claimants. Copies of this letter are being sent to all members of the Committee. Respectfully, WILLIAM M. MOLONEY, General Counsel. Mr. FRIEDEL. All right, thank you. Now one other question. I know that you have jurisdiction over locomotives. Can you give us a general idea of what you do, as far as safety is concerned, for the roadbeds, the bridges, all the things that are not under the ICC regulations? Mr. MENK. Yes, sir, I would be happy to. Let's start with the basic part of the railroad, which is the rail. The rail as you may know is measured in pounds per yard, and over the years, we have been laying heavier and heavier rail. The track structure of the railroad is main lines, at least on my railroad, and I am sure this is true on all of the major carriers, is inspected by inspection crews, going up and down the railroad by motorcar, once a day and Mr. FRIEDEL. Once a day ? Mr. MENK. Yes. And oftener, if necessary. In addition to that there is a continuing program of progressive maintenance going on by work gangs of varying sizes, ballasting, timbering, which is putting in the ties, putting on rail anchors to keep the rail from running, due to expansion or contraction. On our railroad, we have what they call track supervisors who are doing most of this patrol work. Additionally we do "out of face work" which is the continuing over a certain segment of the railroad of the full job of tying, ballasting, lifting and putting the track up in shape on a cycle basis. In other words, this job on our railroad goes on, on the maintenance lines, on a program that makes it go over at least every 1 in 6 years. That is, entirely renewing that segment of the track, so that you develop this continuity, and theoretically and in practice, the railroad is completely maintained insofar as the main line sections are concerned about once every six years. And with respect to bridges, we are the track supervisors and the bridge supervisors are continually inspecting them and then once a year, we have a program on our railroad, and I think again this is true on most railroads in the United States, that there is a formal bridge inspection when a crew of officers go over the railroad, inspecting every bridge, or culvert, or whatever it might be, no matter how large or how small, noting any defects that are necessary to correct, and then it is programed to take care of whatever might be deficient in the structure. It does not mean that the structure necessarily has become weakened, but it means that there may be a bend, or a pile, or a stringer that needs replacement, and that is programed to be done. Then we develop from that an overall bridge program and we spend whatever amount of money is necessary to maintain the entire bridge structure. With respect to the rail, we are continually going over our railroad-we have two of what are called rail detector cars. They are cars equipped with electronic devices that examine into the rail, they go over the rail, and they develop whether in the rail structure there is a hidden weakness, such as a fissure. A fissure in laymen's terms would be a cancer, generally in the web of the rail, sometimes in the ball, which developed as a result of improper cooling in the rail during its manufacture or something like that. This really can't happen or does not happen much any more, because the steel industry has developed a technique called controlled cooling, and has eliminated most fissures, but it also finds such things as split heads, maybe weaknesses in the base, anything else that might contribute to a failure. Well, these cars, two of them on our property-and we own our own. Most properties lease their cars on a trip basis from the Sperry Rail Service Co.-now these cars are going over the rails continually. There again, we find out what rail we have that should be replaced, and this is more of a cyclical thing, and we decide, we establish a capital budget, and budget the amount of money necessary to buy the rail that we need to either upgrade or continue at the same standard the type of maintenance we have. On our railroad, the new rail program is running about 80 miles a year, putting in about 80 miles of new rail a year. Did you want me to go into locomotive? Mr. FRIEDEL. No, I think my time has expired, and I thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nelsen. Mr. NELSEN. Yesterday, Mr. Moloney, you made a statement regarding Arizona, and I made some notes. Is your feeling that under the provisions of this bill, that the authority of the State regarding their decision as to the use of radio would be preempted by this Federal act? Did I understand you correctly? Mr. MOLONEY. Yes, sir, that is right. Mr. NELSEN. Did you indicate a concern about this happening? Mr. MOLONEY. We simply pointed to the fact that this bill is broad enough to include this type jurisdiction, and right at the present moment, there is a conflict already existing between the jurisdiction of the Arizona Commission in this area to prohibit, so to speak, the use of radio in this, in connection with train operations. Mr. NELSEN. Well, I was a little concerned about it because it seemed to me that the testimony on the part of labor and management, goes to the point that radio communication is an effective safety factor. If this be true, I wonder if there would not be some need of the Federal Government's overall preemption to move in that direction, if we have accepted the fact that it is a safety factor. What is your feeling about it? Mr. MOLONEY. We think that there exists that today, that the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to authorize use of radio in train operations, which authority was granted, which license was issued, in order to improve safety, and so on, is self-sufficient to cover that area. And I simply attempted to call attention to the possible or even probable conflict of jurisdiction between the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Transportation should this bill become law. Mr. NELSEN. In what manner does radio contribute to safety in railroading? Mr. MOLONEY. I would like to refer that question to Mr. Menk, who is much more familiar with the railroad operations and the use of this. Mr. NELSEN. I would be happy if the gentleman would respond. Mr. MENK. Thank you, Mr. Nelsen, Actually, in listening to Mr. Crotty, I was a little surprised that he brought the subject up as an antisafety device, so to speak. The railroads have acquired radio frequencies and spent enormous sums of money on radios, in the interest not only of efficiency, but also have felt very sincerely in the interests of safety, and I might talk about a few examples, for instance, in freight trains. Freight trains have become longer and longer, as you know, and formerly the only way that the member of the crew on the rear end could communicate with the member of the crew on the head end, in the engine of a freight train, was through hand signals, and they would get out let's say, they pulled a coupler; they would get out in the field and far off on the right-of-way and try to signal the man back by hand signals by day or by lantern signals at night or maybe get up on top of the car or someplace like that. Now we have instant communications which means we have a radio in the caboose and one on the engine, the way we do it now, and a man will simply get out and make the observation to how close the cars are to the coupling and say move back four cars, three cars, two cars, one car, OK, stop, and the car is coupled. Certainly that is a great deal more efficient, and in my judgment a lot safer than the old system. We also have radio to communicate with engines in yards again to improve our efficiency but also in the interests of safety. Mr. Crotty went into the matter of maintenance-of-way crews and flagging protection and the way that radios are used. Our experience has been that the radio promotes safety and our maintenance-of-way crews, both their trucks and the men themselves, are equipped with some type of radio. They are able to keep in constant contact with the traincrews along the line, and know where they are, and be able to clear the track or instruct the train to stop, or whatever, despite the fact that in addition to this our rules provide for specific placing of flags, which will stop the train anyway, and in instance here where it is necessary, a live flagman. Now bear in mind, gentlemen, these are the same type of radios that are used on our planes when every day we have got thousands and thousands of airplanes flying all over the country which are depending almost solely on radio, well, solely on radio for their communications with the various fields and if our radios are ineffective you must believe that theirs are and I just don't believe this. Mr. BROTZMAN. Would the gentleman yield? Mr. NELSEN. I yield. Mr. BROTZMAN. This is a question I wanted to ask too, and I heard your testimony the other day, and it is related. There seems to be some sort of contention here, Mr. Menk, I would say, then, between management and labor. I listened to the testimony about the radios and I can't help but believe from my experience that radios should be a better means of communication, or else we would not be doing it in other modes of transportation. I don't quite understand what the real problem is. It would seem, as you said a moment ago, it would now in fact be safer, as dist inguished from running the other way in the spectrum. It is your opinion it is safer; am I correct? Mr. FRIEDEL (presiding). Mr. Nelsen, your time has expired. Mr. BROTZMAN. May I say, Mr. Chairman Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Kornegay. Mr. BROTZMAN. I asked a question. I will take it off my time, if he could answer it. Mr. FRIEDEL. I would like to say that at 10:30 we will have the Secretary of the Department of Transportation before the committee, and we just have a couple more minutes before he goes on. Mr. BROTZMAN. That is why I thought that he would answer my question. Mr. NELSEN. Mr. Chairman, I hope the gentleman can supply that information because this is a bewildering difference of opinion that I don't really understand. That is what I have really been trying to get at. Mr. KUYKENDALL. Will we be allowed to question the gentleman later on? I would rather question him than the Secretary of Transportation. Mr. FRIEDEL. Well, we have him coming at 10:30. We have until 10:30. Do you want to go on? Mr. BROTZMAN. If he could just answer the one question on the radios. Would you just respond to that? Mr. MENK. The answer is "Yes," I can't relate radios to anything but safety in operations. I don't see that there is anything hazardous in |