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Mr. FRIEDEL. I want to thank you, Mr. Daulton, for a very informative statement.

On page 1 of your statement, you said you have "been a member of the Steering Committee of the Safety Section of the Association of American Railroads" and you said, "I am acquainted with what they and their railroads are doing to promote a safer place for their men to work and to eliminate needless suffering and death."

Can you outline to this committee what you do in line with the freight cars, trackage, bridges? What regulations do you have as far as safety on the railroads themselves? I am not talking about regulations: but what do you do?

Mr. DAULTON. What does this Steering Committee of the Safety Section of the Association of American Railroads do with respect to equipment and trackage and so on?

Mr. FRIEDEL. Yes; that is not under the ICC regulations.

Mr. DAULTON. Well, if some new design is come up with by the car manufacturers or the railroads themselves, the steering committee of the safety section considers it and makes their recommendations with regard to the safety aspects of the equipment.

Mr. FRIEDEL. How often do you go over your trackage? Someone mentioned that at least once a year, if not more, they go over their bridges. These are the things that I would like to know. What are the standards of the railroads in looking after their equipment?

Mr. DAULTON. Well, track and bridge inspection on all railroads comes under the engineering department.

Mr. FRIEDEL. I could go into others, but I am trying to find out what the guidelines are for the railroads to look after their equipment as far as safety is concerned.

Mr. DAULTON. Well, as I mentioned, the inspection of tracks and bridges comes under the engineering department. What their practices are I cannot tell you exactly at this time. Inspection of locomotives is under Federal law. Inspection of certain areas of equipment is also under Federal law, such as the safety appliances.

All cars are inspected on interchange. That is, when one road delivers them to another they are inspected for defect. So far as inspections of properties for fire and housekeeping hazards, we have just completed on the L. & N. an inspection of the entire system this year and that was conducted by an assistant general manager.

The inspections of yards and terminals on the L. & N., I personally do. I walk the yards from end to end, take pictures of anything I see that needs correcting, and it is handled immediately for correction. Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Moss.

Mr. Moss. I have not yet had the opportunity to complete the reading of the statement but I do have some questions on table B.

You are reporting here gross totals in the period 1961 through 1967. What percentage of the total work force does that represent? Has there been an increase in work force in these years or a decrease in work force?

Mr. DAULTON. Sir, table B says number of persons. That is all persons whether they are employees, people in grade crossing accidents, or trespassers. That is not related solely to employees.

Mr. Moss. Well, is it related significantly or substantively to railroad employees?

Mr. DAULTON. Sir, at the moment I can't answer you.

Mr. Moss. I think you should be prepared to answer that question. That is rather a simple one. You have cited the figures. You must know whether they come from workers or whether they come from people at grade crossings. You must have some idea.

Mr. DAULTON. Well, the ICC, now the FRA, issues monthly and annually exhaustive studies and I do not happen to have that with me. I could make the information available to you.

Mr. Moss. Well, I would ask, Mr. Chairman, that we have as a percentage of work force the pattern of the year 1961 to 1967 of killed and injured. I ask that the record be held open to receive that.

I think that is a significant fact and one that the committee should be conversant with.

Will you supply that for us?

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Will the gentleman yield at that point for an additional question?

Mr. Moss. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Only if you agree, Mr. Moss, we in this particular percentage would want the casualties of the work force only, in other words, leave out pedestrians, so to speak.

Mr. Moss. I am asking his percentage of work force.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. As opposed to casualties of

Mr. Moss. Other than work force. Unless they were a part of the working group employed by the railroad they woud not be included. Mr. KUYKENDALL. We have been getting casualty figures that included a lot of other people. I would like to see it separated.

Mr. Moss. Yes, I think we require the separation and the pattern during this period of 8 years of percentage increase or decrease in work injuries. I am not interested in billion ton miles or locomotive hours or any of that.

You have a number of employees. During the course of a year a percentage of them experience accidents. I am interested in those figures.

Mr. DAULTON. Mr. Moss, sir, table C does not answer the question which you have asked but it does give the casualties to employees on duty and casualties to all persons.

Mr. Moss. It doesn't give the percentage.

Mr. DAULTON. No.

Mr. Moss. As it relates to total work force.

Mr. DAULTON. That is true. It does not.

Mr. Moss. And if you got a fairly constant and it would appear to be a relatively constant figure where you cite an 11.9 decrease and maybe you have had a 20-percent decrease in personnel, that may mean one thing. If you had an increase in personnel it may mean another. I want to know that.

Mr. DAULTON. We will furnish the figures. Mr. Moss. That is all the questions I have. (The information requested follows:)

Year

1961.

1962

1963.

1964

1965

1966.

1967 1

1 Preliminary.

2 Preliminary.

CASUALTIES TO EMPLOYEES ON DUTY, RAILWAYS OF ALL CLASSES, 1961-67

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Source: Reports of ICC.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Nelsen.

Mr. NELSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The figures on page 2 indicate that the study you have made refers to your railroad.

How do the figures that you have here compare to the overall performance of all railroads?

Mr. DAULTON. Well, at one point I mentioned that the total railroad casualty ratio had gone from 11.98 to 12.01 in the 1961-67 period, an increase of .03 or three one-hundredths of 1 percent.

Mr. NELSEN. In other words, your record is better than the national average. Is that true?

Mr. DAULTON. I think that our record is better, sir.

Mr. NELSEN. Now, on page 4 reference is made to the $750 figure. How was that figure arrived at? Were there hearings regarding it or how was that established?

Mr. DAULTON. That was a figure established by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. NELSEN. Now, on page 7, you state that "the railroads were accorded a 72-hour period for reporting an employee's injury." It was then changed to 24 hours. Now how was that changed and why?

Mr. DAULTON. That was also set by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. NELSEN. Now, as to the program you have on traffic safety, do other railroads practice the same type of care and attention to safety? Do they have similar programs as those you mentioned on page 15? You mentioned, for instance, what you have been doing in the way of safety awards and attention to safety generally.

Mr. DAULTON. To my knowledge, sir, they do.

Mr. NELSEN. I note your analysis of some of the statements that were made by the proponents and, without questioning whether the analyses are fair in every respect, would not this proposed bill create in the industry a greater attention to the overall safety program of all the railroads of the country?

Mr. DAULTON. I don't believe that legislation creates safety, sir. We have all sorts of traffic laws now and people still run red lights and speed and ignore that legislation.

Mr. NELSEN. Several have mentioned the use of radio as a more efficient way of communication by the persons working on the rail

road. How would this improve efficiency and would it improve efficiency between the workers on the roads?

Mr. DAULTON. Well, the use of radio provides more accurate information and it speeds up operations.

Mr. FRIEDEL. I think the testimony was that they didn't feel that radio went far enough, they would like to see it supplemented.

Mr. NELSEN. I was about to suggest in another question, would it improve it by expanding the use of it?

Mr. DAULTON. Would expanded use of radio improve safety?
Mr. NELSEN. Yes.

Mr. DAULTON. I believe it would.

Mr. NELSEN. Thank you.

I have no more questions.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. ROGERS. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman, but I appreciate very much the statement and the facts that you have brought before the

committee.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Kuykendall.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I would like to welcome the representative of a rather prominent Tennessee industry. If I may go off the record for just a moment.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I am also reminded that it is quoted in the Bible that the devil quotes scripture for his own purposes.

In the examination of a roadbed, and the reason I am referring to the roadbed is that this is the place I find pretty common agreement between management and labor that this is one of our continuous problems, to what extent are you using cars with scientific and electrical equipment to inspect the roadbed as opposed to visual judgment on the part of the employees?

Mr. DAULTON. Sir, we use what is called a Sperry car which is electronic inspection of rails regularly. In fact, we just had this spring on our railroad and also we have our own detection equipment which is used regularly to inspect rails, frogs, switches, and so on.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. If you could give me an opinion about which judgment has veto over the other, the simple judgment of the experienced railroad lineworker as to whether a repair needs to be done or the electronic judgment of this gadget.

Mr. DAULTON. Well, an ordinary worker can't see flaws that are inside the rail which the electronic equipment does detect.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I don't know what particular table but in the tables that were put out I believe by the gentleman from the Department of Transportation it showed a breakdown of all areas at fault in accidents and it listed faulty material, faulty maintenance, fault of employees.

I would assume that fault of material either was there when you bought it, or occurred. That is the type of thing that would be revealed by this electronic equipment, is this correct?

Mr. DAULTON. It would be.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. Is this a more prevalent cause of these sometimes horrible line accidents or is it, let's say, the jarring loose of spikes or

the spreading of a rail, or the cause of water washing out of a bed or something like that.

Which seems to be the more prevalent type accident in the roadbed, the type where the actual steel in the rail gives way or the maintenance part of it, the bed gives away?

Mr. DAULTON. Sir, in my opinion, car failures cause more derailments than track failures.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. All right.

This has not been suggested in our testimony before. I am glad to hear you mention it. I have discussed this thing with the brotherhoods and one of the things I am leading up to is that, if it does evolve that more training for inspection crews is necessary I think we should all know this.

When was the $750 figure set?

Mr. DAULTON. January 1, 1957.

Mr. KUYKENDALL. I am a little bit surprised that you gentlemen from management have not mentioned the inflation factor in the $750 figure as it would affect these statistics. I think you missed a bet there.

Now, in the matter of radios, I believe the gentleman from the brotherhoods mentioned that there are geological reasons for malfunctioning of radios. I know that there are radios of types that can overcome this. I can't believe that modern electronics is not better for real warning than I am not necessarily saying to replace but I would say better than the warning of a man with a flag. If the radio won't work I think you had better get another radio.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FRIEDEL. Mr. Blanton.

Mr. BLANTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Daulton, I too want to commend you for your statement and welcome you to our committee as a citizen of our State. To me this is a rather simple thing if the statistics we have heard so far are correct and I want to ask you if they are.

As you know, we have heard a lot of different kinds of statistics. given here already, but isn't it true that the majority of the causes of the railroad accidents now are for nonregulated causes rather than from regulated causes?

Mr. DAULTON. Let's see if I understand you correctly.

Mr. BLANTON. Is it that simple? We have some Federal regulations on the railroad equipment, the locomotives, but isn't it true that the cause of the majority of the accidents now is because of nonregulated equipment according to your statistics and the others that we have been presented?

Mr. DAULTON. I suppose you could say that, sir. The quality or type of rail is not regulated and the type of truck or wheel is not regulated. Mr. BLANTON. I am not saying that Federal regulation does prevent accidents but I just wanted to point out the fact that it is caused by nonregulated equipment at the present time.

Of course, I know L. & N. has had a very good safety record. I am not sure about these last four wrecks that happened in the last 6 weeks but I noted that all four of these were caused by nonregulated equipment. One wreck I believe cost about $1 million, is that true?

Mr. DAULTON. I wouldn't be surprised.

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