term "employees" as used in said sections 61-64 shall be held to mean persons actually engaged in or onnected with the movement of any train. (Mar. 4, 1907, ch. 2939, § 1. 34 Stat. 1415.)

§62. Hours of service limited.

It shall be unlawful for any common carrier, its officers, or agents, subject to sections 61-64 of this title to require or permit any employees subject to said sections to be or remain on duty for a longer period than sixteen consecutive hours, and when ever any such employee of such common carrier shall have been continuously on duty for sixteen hours he shall be relieved and not required or permitted again to go on duty until he has had at least ten consecutive hours off duty; and no such employee who has been on duty sixteen hours in the aggregate in any twenty-four-hour period shall be required or permitted to continue or again go on duty without having had at least eight consecutive hours off duty: Provided, That no operator, train dispatcher, or other employee who by the use of the telegraph or telephone dispatches, reports, transmits, receives, or delivers orders pertaining to or affecting train movements shall be required or permitted to be or remain on duty for a longer period than nine hours in any twenty-four-hour period in all towers, offices, places, and stations continuously operated night and day, nor for a longer period than thirteen hours in all towers. offices, places, and stations operated only during the daytime, except in case of emergency, when the employees named in this proviso may be permitted to be and remain on duty for four additional hours in a twenty-four-hour period on not exceeding three days in any week: Provided further, The Interstate Commerce Commission may after full hearing in a particular case and for good cause shown extend the period within which a common carrier shall comply with the provisions of this proviso as to such case. (Mar. 4, 1907, ch. 2939, §2, 34 Stat. 1416.)

$63. Penalty; suits therefor; exceptions from operation of chapter.

Any such common carrier, or any officer or agent thereof, requiring or permitting any employee to go, be, or remain on duty in violation of section 62 of this title shall be liable to a penalty of not less than $200 nor more than $500 for each and every violation to be recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States attorney in the district court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violations shall have been committed; and it shall be the duty of such United States attorney to bring such suit upon satisfactory information being lodged with him; but no such suit shall be brought after the expiration of one year from the date of such violation; and it shall also be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to lodge with the proper United States attorney information of any such violations as may come to its knowledge. In all prosecutions under sections 61-64 of this title the common carrier shall be deemed to have knowledge of all acts of all its officers and agents: Provided, That the provisions of said sections shall not apply in any case of casualty or unavoidable accident or the act of God; nor where the delay was the result of a cause not known to the carrier or its officer or agent in charge of such employee at the time said employee left a terminal, and which could not have been foreseen: Provided further, That the provisions of said sections shall not apply to the crews of wrecking or relief trains. (Mar. 4, 1907, ch. 2938 83, 34 Stat. 1416; May 4, 1916, ch. 109, §1, 39 Stat. 61; June 25, 1948, ch. 646, §1, 62 Stat. 909; Aug. 14, 1957, Pub. L. 85-135, §2, 71 Stat. 352.)

§ 64. Enforcement by Interstate Commerce Commission.

It shall be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to execute and enforce the provisions of sections 61-64 of this title, and all powers granted to the Interstate Commerce Commission are extended to it in the execution of this chapter. (Mar. 4, 1907, ch. 2939, § 4, 34 Stat. 1417.)

SIGNAL INSPECTION ACT (49 U.S. C. 26)

§ 26. Safety appliances, methods, and systems. (a) Definition of carrier.

The term "carrier" as used in this section includes any carrier by railroad subject to this chapter (including any terminal or station company), and any receiver or any other individual or body, judicial or otherwise, when in the possession of the business of a carrier subject to this section: Provided, however, That the term "carrier" shall not include any street, interurban, or suburban electric railway unless such railway is operated as a part of a general steam-railroad system of transportation, but shall not exclude any part of a general steam

railroad system of transportation now or hereafter operated by any other motive

power.

(b) Order to install systems, etc.; modification; negligence of carrier.

The Commission may, after investigation, if found necessary in the public interest, order any carrier within a time specified in the order, to install the block signal system, interlocking, automatic train stop, train control, and/or cab-signal devices, and/or other similar appliances, methods, and systems intended to promote the safety of railroad operation, which comply with specifications and requirements prescribed by the Commission, upon the whole or any part of its railroad such order to be issued and published a reasonable time (as determined by the Commission) in advance of the date for its fulfillment: Provided, That block signal systems, interlocking, automatic train stop, train control, and cabsignal devices in use on August 26, 1937, or such systems or devices hereinafter installed may not be discontinued or materially modified by carriers without the approval of the Commission: Provided, further, That a carrier shall not be held to be negligent because of its failure to install such systems, devices, appliances, or methods upon a portion of its railroad not included in the order, and any action arising because of an accident occurring upon such portion of its railroad shall be determined without consideration of the use of such systems, devices, appliances, or methods upon another portion of its railroad.

(c) Filing report on rules, standards, and instructions with Commission; time; modficiation.

Each carrier by railroad shall file with the Commission its rules, standards, and instructions for the installation, inspection, maintenance, and repair of the systems, devices, and appliances covered by this section within six months after August 28, 1937, and, after approval by the Commission, such rules, standards, and instructions, with such modifications as the Commission may require, shall become obligatory upon the carrier: Provided, however, That if any such carrier, shall fail to file its rules, standards, and instructions the Commission shall prepare rules, standards, and instructions for the installation, inspection, maintenance, and repair of such systems, devices, and appliances to be observed by such carrier, which rules, standards, and instructions, a copy thereof having been served on the president, chief operating officer, trustee, or receiver, of such carrier, shall be obligatory: Provided further, That such carrier may from time to time change the rules, standards, and instructions herein provided for, but such change shall not take effect and the new rules, standards, and instructions be enforced until they shall have been filed with and approved by the Commission: And provided further, That the Commission may on its own motion, upon good cause shown, revise amend, or modify the rules, standards, and instructions prescribed by it under this subsection, and as revised, amended, or modified they shall be obligatory upon the carrier after a copy thereof shall have been served as above provided.

(d) Inspection by Commission; personnel.

The Commission is authorized to inspect and test any systems, devices, and appliances referred to in this section used by any such carrier and to determine whether such systems, devices, and appliances are in proper condition to operate and provide adequate safety. For these purposes the Commission is authorized to employ persons familiar with the subject. Such persons shall be in the classified service and shall be appointed after competitive examination according to the law and the rules of the Civil Service Commission governing the classified service. No person interested, either directly or indirectly, in any patented article required to be used on or in connection with any of such systems, devices, and appliances or who has any financial interest in any carrier or in any concern dealing in railway supplies shall be used for such purpose.

(e) Unlawful use of system, etc.

It shall be unlawful for any carrier to use or permit to be used on its line any system, device, or appliance covered by this section unless such apparatus, with its controlling and operating appurtenances, is in proper condition and safe to operate in the service to which it is put, so that the same may be used without unnecessary peril to life and limb, and unless such apparatus, with its controlling and operating appurtenances, has been inspected from time to time in accordance with the provisions of this section and is able to meet the requirements of such test or tests as may be prescribed in the rules and regulations provided for in this section.

(f) Report of failure of system, etc., and accidents.

Each carrier shall report to the Commission in such manner and to such extent as may be required by the Commission, failures of such systems, devices, or appliances to indicate or function as intended; and in case of accident resulting from failure of any such system, device, or appliance to indicate or function as intended, and resulting in injury to person or property which is reportable under the rules of the Commission, a statement forthwith must be made in writing of the fact of such accident by the carrier owning or maintaining such system, device, or appliance to the Commission; whereupon the facts concerning such accident shall be subject to investigation as provided in sections 40-42 of Title 45. (g) Duties and powers of Commission.

It shall be the duty of the Commission to see that the requirements of this section and the orders, rules, regulations, standards, and instructions made, prescribed, or approved hereunder are observed by carriers, and all powers granted prior to August 26, 1937, to the Commission are extended to it in the execution of this section.

(h) Penalites; enforcement.

Any carrier which violates any provision of this section, or which fails to comply with any of the orders, rules, regulations, standards, or instructions made, prescribed, or approved hereunder shall be liable to a penalty of $100 for each such violation and $100 for each and every day such violation, refusal, or neglect continues, to be recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States attorney in the district court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violations shall have been committed. It shall be the duty of such attorneys to bring such suits upon duly verified information being lodged with them showing such violations having occurred; and it shall be the duty of the Commission to lodge with the proper United States attorneys information of any violations of this section coming to its knowledge. (Feb. 4, 1887, ch. 104, pt. I. § 25, formerly § 26, as added Feb. 28, 1920, ch. 91. § 441, 41 Stat. 498, and amended Aug. 9, 1935, ch. 498, § 1, 49 Stat. 543; Aug. 26, 1937, ch. 818, 50 Stat. 835, renumbered Sept. 18, 1940, ch. 722, title I, § 14(b), 54 Stat. 919.)

MEDALS OF HONOR ACT (49 U.S.C. 1201-1203)

§ 1201. Awards for acts of heroism involving railroads or motor vehicles. The President of the United States is authorized to cause to be prepared bronze medals of honor, with suitable emblematic devices, which shall be bestowed upon any persons who shall, by extreme daring, endanger their own lives in saving, or endeavoring to save, lives from any wreck, disaster, or grave accident, or in preventing or endeavoring to prevent such wreck, disaster, or grave accident, upon any railroad within the United States engaged in interstate commerce or involving any motor vehicle on the public highways, roads, or streets of the United States: Provided, That no award of said medal shall be made to any person until sufficient evidence of his deserving shall have been furnished and placed on file, under such regulations as may be prescribed by the President of the United States. (Feb. 23, 1905, ch. 744, § 1, 33 Stat. 743; June 13, 1957, Pub. L. 85-50, § 1(1), 71 Stat. 69.)

§ 1202. Rosettes and ribbons; replacement.

The President of the United States is authorized to issue to any person to whom a medal of honor may be awarded under the provisions of section 1201 of this title a rosette or knot, to be worn in lieu of the medal, and a ribbon to be worn with the medal; said rosette or knot and ribbon to be each of a pattern to be prescribed by the President of the United States: Provided, That whenever a ribbon issued under the provisions of sections 1201-1203 of this title shall have been lost, destroyed, or rendered unfit for use without fault or neglect on the part of the person to whom it was issued, a new ribbon shall be issued to such person without charge therefor. (Feb. 23, 1905, ch. 744,§ 2, 33 Stat. 743.)

§ 1203. Appropriation.

Appropriations for the Interstate Commerce Commission are made available for carrying out the provisions of sections 1201 and 1202 of this title. (Feb. 23, 1905, ch. 744, § 3, 33 Stat. 743; June 13, 1957. Pub. L. 85-50, § 1(2), 71 Stat. 69.)

COMMENT OF A. H. CHESSER, CHAIRMAN, RLEA SAFETY COMMITTEE, ON MAY 8, 1968 RELEASE OF ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS ON 1967 RAILROAD SAFETY RECORD

My attention has been directed to a release of the Association of American Railroads dated May 8, 1968, claiming that the safety record of American railroads in that year was very good, and showed an improvement over other recent years. This manifestly self-serving and quite inaccurate claim has been made in the light of a safety record which, measured by all competent and meaningful standards, was deplorable.

The Association's claim was based on three statistical measures, as follows: 1) That the fatalities of passengers on the railroads declined in 1967 from the total experienced in 1966;

2) That the record level of train accidents was a statistical freak caused by the rising cost of railroad equipment; and

3) That employee fatalities when measured against the gross ton-miles handled declined in the latest years from levels of the recent past.

I shall comment briefly on all three of these absurd contentions.

First, as to passenger fatalities; the rceord for 1967 looks good only in comparison with 1966. Here are the figures for recent years:

As these figures indicate, the 1967 passenger fatality rate per 100 million passenger miles is good only when compared with 1966 when a single accident on the Boston & Maine railroad killed 11 passengers and raised the total for that year substantially above the level for most other recent years. The 1967 rate is above the rates for 1963, 1964, and 1965, and not much below 1961. Most important, however, is the fact that an industry that killed 2,458 people in all classes last year should feature its passenger record of 13 fatalities as indicating an improvement in its safety record. Passenger deaths in recent years, of course, have declined as passenger service has been eliminated. If the present trends in passenger operations are continued, in a few years the railroads may have a perfect record in this department since they will have eliminated all passenger service.

Next, the A.A.R. contends that the rise in train accidents has been due primarily to the increase in the costs of equipment and materials. This is false. While there may be some marginal influence on the threshold of accident reportability due to rising costs, the magnitude of recent price increases cannot begin to explain the immense rise in train accidents. Here are the data of the Association of American Railroads on materials and supplies costs and the number of train accidents for recent years.

Clearly, the increase in prices of materials the railroads buy can have had very little effect in increasing the number of reported train accidents. There was virtually no increase in such prices in the years 1961 through 1964; yet accidents increased very substantially. In the last three years, although prices have risen 6.6 per cent, the number of accidents rose 51.9 per cent. There may have been some small relationship here, but it certainly cannot explain the tremendous increase in accidents that occurred.

Lastly, the Association of American Railroads actually boasts of its employee safety record based on a statistical demonstration relating employee fatalities to gross ton-miles. This is a completely unreliable index. Emplovee casualty_rates are uniformly computed on a basis of employee man-hours. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the computation of employee casualty rates as follows:

"The standard injury-frequency rate is defined as the average number of disabling work injuries for each million employee-hours worked. The lack of comparability inherent in simple injury totals, arising from variations in employment and operating time, is thus overcome by expressing the injuries in terms of a standard unit of exposure."

A key word in this statement is the term "exposure." The number of injuries is related to a standard expressing the opportunity or potential for injury-occurrence, or "exposure." The standard unit measuring exposure or potential for industrial injuries or fatalities to workers is the man-hour, used in multiples of one million. The railroads, so far as we have learned, are the first organization or institution to suggest that accident rates for railroad employees should be measured by the gross ton-miles hauled. Ton-miles may have some validity as a measure of exposure of tons of freight to loss and damage through accidents. So far as we have been able to determine, it has not even been used in that manner, but it may have been so used by carrier loss-and-damage experts. But, certainly no one has ever before used it as an exposure standard for worker injuries.

When we look at railroad employee fatalities measured by the appropriate exposure standard-per million man-hours, we have a very different picture.

Except for the one year 1964, the 1967 fatality rate for employees was the worst in this whole period of years.* For reference the release from the Association of American Railroads follows.

[News Service, Association of American Railroads, for release Wednesday, May 8, 1968] WASHINGTON, May 8, 1968.-Passenger fatalities on America's railroads were reduced by better than 50 percent in 1967, highlighting a drop in rail casualties in virtually all categories, the Department of Transportation's "Preliminary Report on Railroad Accidents and Resulting Casualties" reveals.

The preliminary report shows that railroads had only 13 passenger fatalities in 1967 compared to 27 the previous year. The fatality rate per 100 million passenger miles dropped from .16 in 1966 to .09 last year.

Both figures were well below averages for the last 10 years in both categories. And, while single-year passenger safety comparisons can be misleading, the railroads' outstanding record as the safest of all means of public transportation is a continuing story extending back over many years.

Fatalities during the last 10-year period averaged 23 per year while the rate per 100 million passenger miles was .12.

(Meanwhile, preliminary 1967 domestic air travel figures, issued by the National Transportation Safety Board, show the passenger fatality rate per 100 million

Throughout this statement, comparisons have been confined only to the years, 1961 to 1967. Changes in the methods of reporting railroad accidents and casualties made effective in the year 1961 seriously impair the validity of any comparisons with earlier years.