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37–369 PDF 2007

FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL ROLES

IN RAIL SAFETY

(110–66)

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 9, 2007 (Norwalk, CA)

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida Chairwoman 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(ex officio) 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennylvania 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

LYNN A. WESTMORELND, Georgia 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(ex officio) 

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS Page

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi

TESTIMONY 

Beilke, Ron, Mayor, City of Pico Rivera ................................................................ 16

Clark, Richard, Director, Consumer Protection & Safety Division, California 

Public Utilities Commission ................................................................................ 16

Eby, Clifford, Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration ............. 6

Ojeda, Jesus, Presenter-Trainer, California Operation Lifesaver ....................... 35

Richmond, Rick, Executive Director, Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority ................................................................................................................... 16

Roberts, Chris, Regional Vice President, South Operations, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad ......................................................................................... 35

Spence, David, Mayor, La Canada Flintridge ....................................................... 16

Smith, Tim, California State Legislative Board Chairman, Brotherhood of 

Locomotive Engineers .......................................................................................... 35

Wickersham, David, Chief Engineer, Western Region, Union Pacific Railroad . 35

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Brown, Hon. Corrine, of Florida ............................................................................. 48

Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas .................................................................. 57

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 66

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Beilke, Ron ............................................................................................................... 68

Clark, Richard W. .................................................................................................... 75

Eby, Clifford ............................................................................................................. 80

Ojeda, Jesus ............................................................................................................. 101

Richmond, Rick ........................................................................................................ 105

Roberts, Chris .......................................................................................................... 125

Smith, Timothy L. ................................................................................................... 137

Spence, David ........................................................................................................... 146

Wickersham, Dave ................................................................................................... 152

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Brown, Hon. Corrine, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, 

questions for Chris Roberts, submitted by Senator Feinstein, including 

response ................................................................................................................ 53

Eby, Clifford, Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, response to questions from Rep. Napolitano ......................................................... 93

Napolitano, Hon. Grace F., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California:

Board of Supervisors County of Los Angeles, Gloria Molina, County Supervisor, written statement ................................................................................... 61

Photo, Railroad I.C., City of Industry, March 8, 2005 ...................................... 65

Richmond, Rick, Executive Director, Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority, slide presentation ................................................................................... 114

Wickersham, David, Chief Engineer, Western Region, Union Pacific Railroad, 

response to questions from the Subcommittee .................................................. 156

vi


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37369.002
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37369.003
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37369.004
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37369.005
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37369.006
(1)

FIELD HEARING ON FEDERAL, STATE, AND 

LOCAL ROLES IN RAIL SAFETY 

Thursday, August 9, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES AND HAZARDOUS

MATERIALS

Norwalk, CA. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in Norwalk City Council Chambers, Norwalk Municipal Center, 12700 

Norwalk Blvd., Norwalk, California, Hon. Corinne Brown [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Brown, Napolitano, and Johnson. 

Also Present: Representative Sanchez. 

Ms. BROWN. Will the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and 

Hazardous Materials come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting 

today to hear testimony on Federal, State, and local roads and railway safety. I want to thank the Norwalk City Council for their hospitality and then letting us hold our hearing in their chamber. 

I also want to thank my friend, Congresswoman Grace 

Napolitano, for inviting us to her district to hold this hearing 

today, and I want you to know that we have been working on this 

hearing for over six months, ever since I became Chairperson, and 

I have also learned, I am sure, as local people know, that you cannot tell her no, that you will have to work it out. 

Rail safety is a growing concern in California. When Congress 

last reauthorized the FRA in 1994, California had 129 train accidents, of which 54 were due to human factors and 43 were due to 

track defects. In 2006, California had 189 train accidents, of which 

64 were due to human factors and 54 were due to track defects. 

While total grade crossing incidents and injuries are down, fatal 

grade crossing incidents have increased. In 1994, FRA reported 30 

grade crossing incidents that resulted in 43 fatalities in California. 

In 2006, 34 grade crossing incidents resulted in 36 fatalities. 

After numerous hearings on rail safety, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure reported a comprehensive rail safety 

bill that will address many of the safety problems being faced by 

the rail industry, both in California and in the rest of the Nation. 

This legislation, which will soon be considered by the whole 

House, makes numerous improvement to rail safety, including requiring the Secretary of Transportation to develop a long-term 

strategy for improving rail safety, improving safety at grade crossings, strengthening hour-of-service laws, improving worker trainVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
2

ing, requiring new rail safety technologies, and strengthening employee whistleblower protections. 

But for these safety measures to be effective, we must remain 

vigilant. States and localities must work with the Federal Government and help ensure compliance with Federal-mandated safety 

standards. Finally, rail carriers must be wary of the dangers their 

operations pose to communities. 

I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today. I look forward 

to hearing their ideas on how Federal, State, and local governments can work together to enforce safety laws and improve rail 

safety. 

Before I recognize the witnesses, I want to acknowledge that the 

Mayor is here and I will let you introduce the Mayor. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Mayor Rick Ramirez. 

Mayor RAMIREZ. Good afternoon. How is everybody doing today? 

We would just like to invite you—it is an honor and a privilege to 

have such a meeting hosted here, in the city of Norwalk, and I 

would like to welcome our distinguished Member of Congress here 

to talk about rail safety and issues that affect this region. 

I hope that a lot of good will come out of this Committee meeting 

and that a lot of the issues would be addressed today. It takes a 

collaborative effort of local, State and Federal officials, working together, to address issues that effect this region. So on behalf of the 

City Council, and the city of Norwalk, we would like to welcome 

everyone here this afternoon. And we ordered this special weather 

for you this afternoon, clear skies and warm weather. So again, 

thank you and welcome to the city of Norwalk. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want you to 

know, I appreciate the weather. I am just leaving Dallas, and Florida, and Washington, where it was over a hundred. Thank you. 

Before I recognize other Members for their opening statements, 

I ask unanimous consent to allow 14 days for all Members to revise 

and extend their remarks, and to permit the submission of additional statements and materials by Members and witnesses. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Also, I would like to ask unanimous consent for Congresswoman 

Sanchez, and any other Members of Congress, to participate in today’s hearing, to sit and ask questions of the witnesses. Welcome, 

Congresswoman. 

And now the Congresswoman whose district we are in, Mrs. 

Napolitano, I recognize you for your opening remarks. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Chairwoman Brown, for holding 

the hearing ‘‘in my backyard,’’ so to speak, and I thank my colleagues, Congresswoman Johnson and Sanchez for being with us 

for this very important hearing, and welcome to the 38th Congressional District. 

My district has the most congested urban rail quarters in the 

country. We have over 160 trains traveling through my district 

every day, 90 on the Union Pacific and 70 on the BNSF. You can 

see 14,000 containers, or more, traveling through this hearing, 

many of them carrying hazardous material, which is a great concern to my electorate and my constituency. Although we transport over $400 billion worth of trade, we need 

to ensure that we are working in a collaborative way to continue 

3

working towards the diminishing of the accidents and the fatalities, 

and of everything that we know can happen. 

Just in my district alone, there are over 3 million people that live 

and reside in the areas that are polluted by the cars waiting to get 

through the crossings, and many of the railroad tracks, as we well 

know, run adjacent to residential areas. 

And of course the major commuter and business corridors have 

those rails going right through those areas. Commuters are necessarily burdened by traffic delays at grade crossings, the air quality issues due to pollution from the engines, from the cars and 

trains, noise from whistles at night, from the rail cars, and of 

course the safety concerns because we have had derailments in our 

‘‘back yard,’’ so to speak. 

And we have had, in one year, between October 2004 and May 

2005, five derailments. So we are very cognizant of what can happen. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, but there was a loss in 

the millions of dollars, not only to homes and to businesses, but 

cause great anxiety in our communities. 

We need to increase the cooperation of the railroads, the communities, the State, the Federal, and the counties, for rail safety in 

urban areas. 

We need to continue working together, and I know there has 

been a great effort, and I thank UP, and BNSF is coming very nicely with talking to us, and Lupe, she has been at every meeting we 

have had since May meeting, on days, when we were sitting at the 

table, trying to figure out how do we get the railroads to comply 

with the needs of our communities. 

And is Judge Schneider here? Thank you, sir, for being here. You 

said you would come. Union Pacific legal representative. And we 

have been at the table for many hours in the last, I would say 

what? four years. 

So I have seen a lot of the changes which are very beneficial to 

the community, especially when they turned most of the Alameda 

Corridor into new rail and new concrete ties. 

And that’s a great benefit. Now we need to start working on collaborative efforts with communities, the schools, the groups, so that 

your youngsters know that rail barriers are not open to pedestrian 

traffic. It is a misdemeanor to be in those private areas, and we 

need to tell them how important it is for them not to ‘‘play chicken,’’ trying to move into areas where they can get killed. We have 

had those already. We don’t need anymore. 

So we would want to ensure that this hearing—thank you, Chairwoman Brown, for continuing to push the big safety factor of the 

transportation area in your Committee. Stronger standards for railway inspectors are needed, so that we are ensured that not only 

is the equipment and the maintenance of such equipment safe 

enough to be able to traverse our areas, but that those employees 

are also protected. 

The amendments. We need to ensure that they receive the maximum of training necessary to be able to carry out their trust. 

There are a lot of other things. I would rather just go ahead and 

say to all of the witnesses, to the people who are here, thank you 

so much, and especially to my colleagues, because this truly is an 

area that deserves to be able to have a gathering of those individVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
4

uals who care about the safety of the community and the safety of 

the railroad and its people, because they are one of our biggest 

economies in the area and they bring us prosperity. But we need 

to work together and have them understand how their actions can 

affect the safety of our communities. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a lot of other things, that 

I’ll put them in writing, and I appreciate you being here. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Congresswoman. And Congresswoman 

Johnson, your opening remarks. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. Let me express my appreciation to the Mayor, and various officials here. in the city, for welcoming us, and thank the witnesses for being here. 

I am going to ask unanimous consent that I file my entire statement and simply make some opening remarks. 

We all struggle to attempt to answer and correct many problems, 

and it is a partnership between the public and the railroads. The 

railroads are vitally important, most especially to my State, and we 

have a lot of accidents. Most of them happen at rail crossings, and 

we had a conversation en route here, where I talked about some 

of the things that we had done at home with public education, with 

PTAs and neighborhood groups, to make sure that safety activities 

would be understood and practiced by our citizens. 

It does not take the responsibility 

away from railroads but we hope that working in partnership 

with many young people, and people who think they can beat the 

train, and what have you, that we can improve this together. 

It is extremely important and there is no way that I can deny 

that we have had plenty. In Texas, many of them have been a little 

different than what the Congresswoman here was telling me about. 

We have not had so many in our urban areas. But we have had 

the hazardous waste, where chlorine was wasted near San Antonio, 

and various places, and we could probably go on and on about some 

of the things that have happened. But we have passed a rail safety 

bill out of Committee and probably, upon our return to Washington, we will take it up. 

And so I thank you for showing the interest, and I feel very certain, with attention being given to this problem by railroads, and 

our citizenry, cause we can’t live without each other, that we will 

solve this problem, working together. Thank you, and I yield back 

the balance of my time. 

Ms. BROWN. Congresswoman Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. I want to, first and foremost, thank 

Chairwoman Brown for convening this very important hearing and 

for allowing me to participate in it as well. I would also like to 

thank Congresswoman Grace Napolitano for persuading our 

learned Chairwoman to hold this hearing right here in our region, 

in Southern California, and my regards to Congresswoman Eddie 

Bernice Johnson who has traveled to be with us here today, and 

to all my colleagues for their contributions to the issue of rail safety. 

The leadership of these colleagues, as well as that of State and 

local leaders, and safety advocates, is incredibly important as we 

consider the issues before us today. Sadly, issues related to railroad 

safety and operations are among those that only capture public atVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
5

tention when something catastrophic happens, and for many of us 

in this region, we had a tragedy that happened on October 16th, 

2004, that really made us sit up and take notice. 

We had a Union Pacific freight train, that was traveling at about 

60 miles an hour, that derailed in my district, and that train 

slammed into two homes and several backyards in West Whittier. 

Fortunately, in that particular accident, no one was killed or seriously injured. But it served as a wakeup call for all of us to start 

thinking about the issue of railroad safety. To that end, I joined my 

colleague, Congresswoman Napolitano, and county supervisor, Gloria Molina, to take a deeper look into the issues surrounding the 

Whittier derailment. 

With ever-increasing cargo shipments in and out of the port of 

Long Beach and Los Angeles, this is a growing issue of concern in 

this part of LA County, and beyond. We discovered, that while rail 

operations have been getting safer and safer over the past decades, 

derailments and other ail accidents still occur, often with horrible 

consequences for the people who work on the trains, as well as 

those who live near the railroad lines. 

The bottom line is that we must consistently push the rail industry and rail regulators to do everything that they can to try to 

make rail transport as safe as it can be. 

I am very pleased that this year, Congresswoman Napolitano 

was selected to become a Member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I know that she is using her energy and her 

experience on rail issues to be a strong advocate for rail safety in 

our region and across the country. 

After the Whittier derailment, Congresswoman Napolitano and I, 

along with Supervisor Molina, pressed the Union Pacific to increase 

its inspections of the tracks in our region, and it took a little bit 

of pushing, but I am pleased to report that Union Pacific ultimately 

did just that. 

We then successfully pushed the U.S. Congress to enact into law 

the rail safety recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board, after the Whittier accident. 

Personally, because I come from a labor background and I have 

experience in protecting workers in dangerous occupations, and so 

I take very seriously the concerns and recommendations from 

workers themselves, who are involved in the ‘‘day in and day out’’ 

operations that we hear about from time to time, when there are 

problems. 

Edward Wytkind, the president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL/CIO, recently told a U.S. Senate panel, that 

the current training structure for rail workers is woefully inadequate. New employees are resigning and leaving the industry because they are dissatisfied with the quality of their training, uncertain of their skills, and uncomfortable with what they are asked to 

do, with limited support. 

And I am very concerned when I hear things like that. So I hope 

that there will be some discussion today about training issues related to safety and whether any improvements are needed in the 

rules we have for training rail employees. 

Lastly, I want to signal my strong support for Congresswoman 

Napolitano’s efforts to give State rail regulators more power to 

6

order protective measures for local rail safety. As I think the panel 

will hear today, California has a good core of rail safety inspectors, 

and yet Federal preemption law prevents California from implementing many of the safety rules that could help in our heavilyused rail corridors. 

I think that there should be a way to craft a new rule that allows 

California, and other States, to push ahead on rail safety without 

unduly burdening railroads. 

In conclusion, I just again want to thank my colleagues, and I 

look forward to hearing the testimony from the witnesses, and I 

yield back the balance of my time. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Just one technical announcement. Parking will be validated in 

the back and will you just raise your hand. So if anyone needs 

their parking validated. Okay. 

And I am pleased to thank all of the witnesses for being here 

today, but I want to start with our first witness, who is Mr. Cliff 

Eby, the deputy administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. 

We are pleased to have you here today. If you could limit your 

oral statement to five minutes, but your entire statement will appear in the record, and then we will have the question-and-answer 

periods. 

Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF CLIFFORD EBY, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, 

FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. EBY. Chairman Brown, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I am very pleased to be here today, representing Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Boardman. 

The FRA appreciates the opportunity to discuss Federal, State, 

and local roles in railroad safety. FRA’s regulations address a wide 

range of topics and are based on knowledge and experience acquired over more than a century of railroading in America. 

The regulations specify minimum safety standards that railroads 

must satisfy, and, in practice, typically exceed. 

FRA continually evaluates existing regulations and currently has 

several active rulemakings underway. Our inspection staff of over 

400 is distributed across eight regions. In addition, 165 State inspectors perform inspections for compliance with these Federal regulations. 

Each inspector is an expert in one of five areas: track, signals 

and train control, motive power and equipment, operating practices, or hazardous materials. 

FRA also employs 18 crossing safety and trespass prevention specialists. 

States and localities also play a vital role in assuring railroad 

safety as well. FRA sincerely values and appreciates the important 

contributions of States toward the shared goal of making sure railroads operate safely. 

Over nearly three decades, the number and rate of train accidents, deaths arising from rail operations, employee fatalities and 

7

injuries, and hazardous material releases all have fallen dramatically. 

Between 1978 and 2006, the total number of rail-related accidents and incidents declined 85 percent. 

In that time period, total rail-related fatalities have declined 45 

percent. 

Grade crossing collisions and railroad trespassing deaths account 

for 97 percent of the 911 total rail-related deaths in 2006. 

While the railroad industry’s overall safety record is positive, 

FRA strongly believes that even a single death or injury is one too 

many. 

In light of the tragedy last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 

which a highway bridge collapsed, I want to briefly mention FRA’s 

involvement in overseeing the Nation’s approximately 100,000 railroad bridges. 

Nearly all of these bridges were constructed prior to 1940 and 

most are more than 75 years old. They are owned and maintained 

by privately-owned railroads. Given the generally excellent safety 

record of railroad bridges and the fact that most railroads already 

exceed the safety standards that FRA could incorporate in the regulation, FRA has not issued regulations in this area. 

However, record level rail traffic volumes and heavier carloads 

are placing demands on this critical infrastructure. So we have 

issued a statement of Agency policy on bridge safety as an appendix to the Federal track safety standards. 

FRA recognizes both the long-term and short-term implications 

of an event like last week’s catastrophe and is developing a strategy to ensure the long-term viability of bridges, and other structures. 

A primary concern today is the issue of Federalism as it pertains 

to rail safety. We believe that there is emphasis that in establishing the rail safety preemption provision in 1970, and in subsequent amendments, including the amendment contained in H.R. 1, 

Congress struck a delicate balance. 

It favors national uniformity of railroad safety and security regulations, while preserving an appropriate role for States. 

FRA believes that balance is successfully achieved. Under the 

current statutory regime, States are free to regulate until the Secretary of Transportation issues a regulation or order covering subject matter. This provision works well by allowing States to address 

subjects not encompassed within Federal regulations, and conditions that are truly local in nature. 

It has worked specifically to the benefit of California. 

Other enforcement matters within the control of the State and 

local governments include the aspects of grade crossing safety and 

railroad trespassing. Issues such as the selection of appropriate 

traffic control devices, licensing of motor vehicle drivers, and appropriate sight distance at grade crossings are all matters of State 

law. 

Another statutory provision, originally enacted in 1970, provides 

a mechanism for States to recommend enforcement actions. In fact, 

every State has an opportunity to employ rail safety inspectors in 

all of the rail safety disciplines. 

8

Currently, 28 States actively participate in FRA’s program, including California, which is one of the most vigorous in enforcing 

Federal Railroad regulations. 

States and localities also have opportunities for input into FRA’s 

regulatory agenda. Like any other party, States may petition for 

rulemaking, to request that FRA adopt regulations on a particular 

subject and propose what regulations should say. A good idea to 

improve rail safety in California is a good idea for improving railroad nationwide. 

We strongly believe that States that want to play a larger role 

in regulating railroad safety should do so through the national regulatory process. Balkanizing regulation of railroad safety would 

likely roll back many of the safety gains attained over the past 30 

years. That would ill-serve the national interest. 

FRA personnel strive daily to implement comprehensive initiatives for safety assurance and hazard mitigation, in order to make 

rail operation safer for the public and rail employees. 

We look forward to further discussions with the Subcommittee on 

reauthorization of the Federal Railroad Rail Safety Program and to 

bringing about the enactment of the administration’s railroad safety bill. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. I met, last week, with the Secretary and 

we discussed the railroad safety bill, and as it moves forward, we 

will certainly be looking forward to a further dialogue and discussions. But I hope we all understand the importance of having a 

railroad safety bill at this time. 

And do you want to respond to that? And in addition, I want to 

thank you very much for including the discussion about the bridge 

safety in your testimony, and at this time, we have a excellent safety record as far as railroad bridge safety, but as we move forward, 

what mechanism do you have in place to ensure that we have the 

proper indexing and that we have checked the bridges as far as 

structural damage, because what happened last week, we have 

what? about 586 bridges in the country, and now each State is 

looking at how those that are structurally damaged, and what we 

need to do about it, and of course the discussion, of course later, 

is how you’re going to fund the improvements. 

Because when Dwight David Eisenhower started the program 

some 50 years ago, it is now time for us to reinvest in the whole 

transportation area, whether it’s sewer, water, bridges, railroads, 

mass transit. I mean, we have a major problem in this country and 

we have got to figure out how we are going to address it. 

Mr. EBY. Well, with respect to the railroad safety bill, I think we 

all agree that it’s due time to have a railroad safety bill in place. 

One of the biggest provisions in that, the one that has gotten most 

discussion, is hours of service, and I think we all agree that railroad workers can work far too many hours. 

We think, at the FRA, that our regulatory approach to that 

would be the best approach. We think the issue of hours of work 

goes beyond limbo-time issues, and really needs scientific evidence 

that we have been establishing over years, in working with the 

RSAC, and to have that flexibility. 

With respect to bridges, this has been a focus of Administrator 

Boardman’s now, for some time, and as a civil engineer, an interest 

9

of mine for a career, and at the FRA, in 2007, we added three 

bridge engineers for a total of seven. We hope to add more bridge 

engineers in the future. 

Railroad bridges are unique. They, as I mention in the testimony, 

most of them are 75 years old, or more. They are very robust structures. Only half of them are steel or cast iron structures. 

Now surprisingly, there is 30-some percent of railroad bridges 

that are timber structures, and the remainder are masonry type 

structures. The standard that railroad bridges use is established by 

AREMA, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-ofWay Association, and those standards go back some 60 years. 

Railway bridges are rated in what is referred to as a Cooper rating, and that determines the maximum tonnage that a bridge can 

handle. 

The FRA requires that the railroads follow their inspection plans 

for those bridges, and almost all bridges are inspected once a year, 

and depending on tonnage, some more than that, quite more frequently than what the highway bridges inspection cycle is. 

We do have some concerns. Administrator Boardman has spoken 

to the AREMA group. He recently held a roundtable at the last 

RSAC meeting to look at the future, the next 30 years of railroad 

bridges. 

When they were originally designed, they were originally designed for steam locomotives, 75 years ago, and to be able to support that steam locomotive, so they can take—those bridges were 

designed to take—a single heavy load and then a series of lighter 

loads. 

Now with the heavier cars, we have the constant pounding on 

those bridges of every car that goes over them, even though the locomotive is lighter. And so we need to do continued research in this 

area to see, you know, is there an issue as heavier and heavier 

loads, more and more traffic goes over these bridges? We are looking at increasing the research in that area. 

But it is a strong focus of FRA, and particularly of Administrator 

Boardman. 

Ms. BROWN. I want to commend one of my local railroads, CSX. 

When we had the bridge to go down in Mississippi, near New Orleans, we are still trying to get the Federal bridge back up, but CSX 

was up and operational, and rebuilt the entire bridge within 

months, after it went down. 

So, we, in the Federal Government, can learn something about 

building bridges from the private sector. 

One other thing. Will you update us on the status of DOT grade 

crossing safety action plan. 

Mr. EBY. The grade crossing safety action plan. One of the big 

components that we have been working on, quite a bit lately, is the 

State and local partnerships, and we just recently completed that 

effort with the State of Louisiana. We have had initial discussions 

with the State of Texas, and we are planning a partnership with 

Illinois, Ohio and California in the upcoming years. 

I believe that program stretches out through 2009. We have included in our legislation, and I believe in all the legislation that I 

have seen, a grade crossing inventory. It is very important that we 

collect the appropriate data on grade crossings. 

10

We have also recently completed a blocked crossing study that 

we submitted to Congress last year, and we are in the process of 

completing our private crossing study that is being—where we 

have met across the country, talking about private crossing issues. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Napolitano. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Sir, there is a whole bunch of questions, many of them I probably 

will be putting in writing, because there is just not enough time 

today. But one of the more salient issues that I have are the grade 

separations. As you are very well aware, the Alameda CorridorEast runs through my home district. 54 grade crossings. 

Now if we are going to have an increase in train traffic out of 

the ports to the rest of California, the Western States, and the rest 

of the country, that volume will increase to the point where it will 

be untenable in terms of pollution for the area, safety, because people will be waiting at those that are not grade separated. 

You name it. There is a detrimental effect to the district, and I 

don’t know if we have a map that would show you, the whole corridor is affected. 

And I know that ACE is going to be testifying. There are 20 of 

the 54 that are conceivably going to be grade-separated. 

What can FRA do to increase the number of grade separations, 

especially in the areas where it is so highly populated? Here, 

streets divide cities. So that means you can have less train speed, 

that is less time to get the product to market. It also will impact 

environment, and you are looking at the picture—do we have 

...okay. As you can see from Los Angeles, the city of commerce, the 

upward line, the red line, UP, and then down towards the bottom 

will be—well, the black line is also UP. It is just mindboggling, the 

impact this has on our area, and I would like to ensure that we 

impress upon the Federal rail authority how important it is for us 

to continue building those separations, not only to be able to get 

the product to market on time but to be able to ensure the community’s health in the environment, in the safety aspect of it. 

Could you tell me what—are you working with the State of California on that? Are you working with the ACE project? What can 

you tell us? 

Mr. EBY. Okay. Let me agree with you, that the safest grade 

crossing is one that is eliminated or closed, and with respect to the 

Alameda Corridor, you know, that project is, you know, one of the 

biggest success stories in the country from a public-private partnership standpoint, and in solving the congestion issue in that part of 

the corridor. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. But that just dumped it on us. 

Mr. EBY. Correct. The Secretary’s congestion initiative is looking 

at, you know, the Southern California area. We have Randy Rogers, from the Maritime Administration, out here full time, and my 

counterpart at MARAD, Julie Nelson, out working as well, you 

know, looking at improvements in the whole area. 

We work very closely with Alameda Corridor East. Sharon 

Neeley does an outstanding job for this area, in the Washington, 

D.C., area, in obtaining funds. As you know, FRA has very little 

discretionary money and doesn’t have money for infrastructure of 

that type. 

11

What we are looking at is improvements like what the Alameda 

Corridor is trying to do, you know, intelligent grade crossings and 

signage, improving the throughput, getting the trains through faster. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. That is not going to be enough, sir, and I can 

tell you, I will continue to fight for additional funding for the East 

Corridor, and while the Alameda Corridor itself was built underground, below level, they had to stop, and they should have built 

the rest of the corridor below ground, because then you would have 

the billions of dollars that we are going to be spending on grade 

separations, on sewers, on deteriorating environmental impact, on 

safety, the lives of people. What is that worth? 

And so it is something that we cannot overlook and should continue to press forward. 

States can play a very important role in assisting the FRA with 

ensuring safety along the rail lines, and while I agree that the current law should continue to prohibit States from creating regulations that burden interstate commerce, States should be allowed to 

regulate railroads in order to protect against local safety hazards. 

Do you feel States should be allowed to regulate railroads in 

areas where the Federal Government has not acted? 

Mr. EBY. Well, I believe that’s the current law. Where there is 

no Federal Railroad regulation, States are free to adopt those regulations. You are talking about preemption, as discussed in my oral 

and written testimony, and not being an attorney, I would like to 

have that stand. But let me just give you my perspective on the 

whole preemption issue, because it is complex. 

I think most people prefer the consistency, the uniformity. You 

know, that is why you have your favorite department stores, your 

favorite coffee shops. You know what to expect, you know the level 

of service, you know what’s required of you. 

The current system, I believe works very well, and a good example that I gave in the written testimony, with respect to the steep 

grades in California, and California’s ability to require the railroads to follow a consist makeup, that they have in their operating 

rules. 

I think the existing program also, you know, is complemented 

with the State inspectors that we have, the RSAC process that allows for State, you know, State involvement, and then the ability 

for States and localities to propose regulations, you know, for Federal adoption. 

As I said, a safety rule that is good for California is probably 

very good for the national interest as well. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Administrator, I wonder if you could give us your opinion on 

whether we have enough staff to oversee and whether we are working State/Federal, State/local government together to address many 

of these problems. 

Or what do you consider to be the ideal way to approach solving 

these problems? 

Mr. EBY. Congresswoman, it is always tempting to jump at more 

resources, particularly staffing resources, when it comes to safety 

12

issues. The Inspector General’s report, that came out last year, estimated that the FRA can only inspect .2 percent of the railroad 

incidents and accidents that occur in the Nation each year. 

Well, doubling the staff would bring that to .4 percent, and even 

if those numbers are wrong, we are talking in a very low range of 

ability to inspect everything. 

So, you know, FRA’s approach, and what was included in our 

safety bill was a risk reduction program, and we think this is very 

important. We need to find smarter ways of identifying the risk 

hazards that are out there. We have been working a program 

called Close Call Reporting, in which we are asking railroad operating people to report close calls, accidents that didn’t occur, so we 

can get a better understanding of where potential accidents will be. 

We also have collision hazard analysis that we are trying to encourage the railroads and commuter railroads, in particular, you 

know, to adopt, to look at where the real risks are? trying to find 

smarter ways of identifying these risks. 

So in terms of staffing, we have in our budget every year a slight 

increase in staffing. We try to identify those areas where we are 

going to learn something from the accident investigation, from the 

science that is needed in order to prevent accidents. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. I have no further questions. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, and I appreciate your presence here 

today, Mr. Eby. Is that pronounced——

Mr. EBY. Nearly everybody is saying eBay these days, but——

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. I bet you wish you were the founder of 

eBay. You would probably be making a lot more money than you 

do working for the Federal Government. 

I just wanted to ask a couple of really brief questions. 

Of the accidents that FRA investigates, my understanding is that 

40 percent of those accidents are due to human factors; is that correct? 

Mr. EBY. Correct. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. What role do you think that fatigue plays in the 

human factor percentage? 

Mr. EBY. I don’t think we have a number that we have assigned 

to it, but——

Ms. SANCHEZ. Give me ball park here. 

Mr. EBY. I would say 90 percent of all human factor issues—I 

can’t believe that most operating, railroad operating people, you 

know, either have the intent or have—or are poorly trained. I think 

for the most part, it is a fatigue issue. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. It is a fatigue issue. 

And, internally, have there been any studies to look at issues of 

extreme fatigue, or even cumulative fatigue? 

Mr. EBY. Yes. We have been working for the past two to three 

years with research, and have a fatigue model that we are in the 

process of validating right now, that looks at circadian rhythms, 

that looks at weekend work, that looks at time, both quality of rest 

and quantity of rest. 

13

Ms. SANCHEZ. And have there been any recommendations for 

changing industry practices that might help reduce the fatigue factor, or for the risk of accidents? 

Mr. EBY. Well, this is what we are trying to strive for in our safety legislation, on the hours-of-service provision. We are hoping to 

have regulatory flexibility, so that we can implement, you know, 

the science associated with this and not have, you know, a very 

constrained, a prescriptive approach to hours of service. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay, and I understand that, but my understanding is that if that is one of the largest contributing factors to 

accidents, that is maybe where you should focus a lot of your time 

and attention in terms of recommendations coming from studies 

that can help reduce the fatigue factor, so that therefore, in the 

long run, you will be reducing accidents. 

Mr. EBY. I agree. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I want to speak with you, really briefly, about a 

statement that you made regarding the preemption standard in 

your oral remarks, and I was trying to concentrate and focus on 

your remarks, but did I hear you say that you did not necessarily 

favor States regulating rail issues because it could lead to the Balkanization of rail standards? 

Mr. EBY. Correct. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Could you explain what you found by that remark, 

because I found that remark a little troubling, to be honest with 

you. 

Mr. EBY. Well, what I would expect would happen is you would 

have, you know, community after community adopting their own 

regulations, and if you kind of think of it from a highway perspective, you know, this section of highway will be allowed and the 

trucks will be in the left lane, this section of highway wouldn’t 

have trucks at all, this section of highway would be, you know, all 

four lanes for trucks. 

And that not only the regulation but the interpretation and the 

fines, the penalties, the laws associated with that would create separate islands of regulation across the country, rather than a uniform, consistent standard, which I believe serves the national interest. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And I can certainly understand how, taken to the 

extreme, each State having their own set of regulations and the differences in interpretations could be burdensome to interstate commerce. 

But sort of my fear is that if you use Federal preemption as sort 

of this blanket way of saying because it creates certainty, we ought 

to have the same standard across the country, but not necessarily 

the highest standard, or a really great standard, but, hey, we have 

got a national standard, and because it creates uniformity, that is 

good enough because it is certain. 

Do you sort of see what I am getting at? 

Mr. EBY. Yes. I certainly understand, and we do recognize that 

the FRA’s regulations are the minimum standards that we expect 

railroads to meet. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. You just put your thumb on what I find the most 

troubling aspect, because if you have a uniform standard and it is 

14

the minimum, it is not doing what is required to protect safety, and 

that is my number one concern. 

I know that you mentioned, and my time is running short, that 

the FRA only investigates two-tenths of one percent of all accidents, and from what I understand from the DOT Inspector General reports, even though you’re investigating a very minuscule 

number of accidents, you are not routinely using, reviewing locomotive event recorder data, police reports, and other sources of information to determine the causes of collisions or the need for further investigation. 

Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. EBY. The latter part is. Let me correct the first part in terms 

of—the .2 percent comes from an Inspector General’s report. I am 

not sure of the data that went into that, and it was, you know, accidents, incidents, inspections that are required during the time. So 

it’s not solely just accidents. 

We do tens of thousands of inspections every year, investigate 

hundreds of complaints, and we investigate the hundred most serious accidents with our inspection force. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. And when you investigate those accidents, do you 

routinely review locomotive event recorder data, police reports, and 

other sources of information, to find the causes? 

Mr. EBY. Yes. In a grade crossing accident, the hundred that we 

do full investigations, all that data is reviewed. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. But you would agree that a 100 accidents, 

out of the total number of accidents a year, is still a very minuscule 

number of investigations? 

Mr. EBY. It is small; yes. Right now, we have, we average in railroad grade crossing accidents, there are about 3000 accidents every 

year, and approximately one death per day in grade crossing accidents. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your answers and 

I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. Would you discuss the safety bill that 

we passed out of Full Committee that is headed to the floor, because I think there are some safety issues in there that we have 

addressed, that will improve hours of service, decrease risk, decrease hours on the clock, improve rail safety technology, better 

training, better track standards, more track inspections. 

I mean, I think there are some good things in the bill. We started 

out, initially, the railroads said at the first hearing, they didn’t 

want any bill. 

Well, now, you can tell just from this hearing, that there are 

strong feelings that we need to have a safety bill, and in talking 

to the Secretary, she agrees, and the key is we need to pass the 

bill from the House and the Senate, and go to conference, and work 

with the administration to come up with a safety bill that will—

we haven’t had one in six years and it is really needed in this country. 

Mr. EBY. As I mentioned earlier, we commend the Committee for 

the hard work that it has done on the rail safety bill. We definitely 

need a rail safety bill. 

I think our major area of disagreement is under the, you know, 

the hours of service. While we both agree that railroad workers can 

15

work far too many hours, FRA would like regulatory authority to 

be able to establish regulations that are based on, you know, the 

science of fatigue, and not just focus on, you know, a small part of 

that which is limbo time. 

And in the other areas, as I recall, I think we are in full agreement. We would like to see the risk reduction program that we included in the Administration’s safety bill, and we think that’s a 

sound way of being able to reduce accidents in the railroad industry. 

The Administrator has gone on record saying that we expect a 

50 percent improvement, if we can implement and work on some 

of the initiatives under the risk reduction program. 

Ms. BROWN. Do you have any follow-up on my last question, Ms. 

Johnson? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Sir, you indicate that you do one-tenth of one percent of rail inspections, something to that effect. Two-tenths of one percent. Well, 

in your testimony, you indicate authorized inspection staff, 400, nationwide. How does that work, to be able to do the 3000 accidents, 

or derailments, or problems that you have every year, with 400 

people? 

And I realize that States have their own too. 

Mr. EBY. Correct. We have 165 State inspectors. 

The 400 inspectors do not inspect all 3000 grade crossing accidents. We inspect the top 100 accidents from a severity standpoint 

in the railroad industry each year, and those include not only, you 

know, grade crossing accidents but train collisions, derailments and 

other accidents. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Do you have them placed strategically, in areas of 

greater, I want to say train traffic, for impact? 

Mr. EBY. Yes. Under the Rail Safety Action Plan, we have created a National Inspection Program, and this is a data-driven approach to allocating our inspectors across the country. You know, 

where are the greatest risks? Where would those inspections provide the greatest benefit in terms of reduced accidents? 

We have looked at all five disciplines that we study. We have 

been implementing it now, fully, for about a year, but it started 

two years before. The initial program was with respect to track. 

And so those inspectors are allocated based on where we think 

we can get ‘‘the best bang for the buck.’’

Ms. JOHNSON. Are these the same inspectors that check maintenance yards and follow through the rail inspectors work? 

Mr. EBY. Correct. 

Ms. JOHNSON. So besides doing their normal duty, they are also 

accident inspectors. What else do they do, sir? 

Mr. EBY. Well, as I mentioned, they’re divided into five disciplines and——

Ms. JOHNSON. Can you break them down by discipline? 

Mr. EBY. Yes. We have track——

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I am talking the numbers. 

Mr. EBY. Oh, the numbers? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Yes, because they are already expert in the disciplines, but how many are available to do rail maintenance inspection? 

16

Mr. EBY. I have those numbers here. We have 69 track inspectors, 53 signal inspectors, 84 equipment inspectors, 79 operating 

practice—that is typically referred to as the human factors area—

18 crossing and trespassing inspectors, and 33, they are kind of ‘‘all 

other’’ and in the management support area, of the four hundred. 

[Subsequently added during editorial work: 55 hazardous materials 

inspectors] 

Ms. JOHNSON. That kind a tells me you are very short-handed, 

if you have calls for inspectors in specific disciplines. Thank you, 

Madam Chair. I yield. 

Ms. BROWN. I want to thank you very much. Any closing remarks 

that you want to make? 

Mr. EBY. No. Thank you very much. 

Ms. BROWN. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Thank you. 

Panel two, and I know we were a little over with this particular 

panel, but I think it was necessary, and panel two, we are going 

to try to keep to the timeline because you are committed to tour 

the area at 6:00. 

I would like to welcome and introduce our second panel. 

Our first witness is Ron Beilke, and he is the mayor of the city 

of 

Pico Rivera. And our second witness is David Spence, and he is 

the chair of the coalition—where is Mr. Spence? Okay. And our 

third witness is Richard Clark, the director of the Consumer Protection and Safety Division for the California Public Utilities Commission. And our final witness on this panel is Rick Richmond, the 

Executive Director of the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF RON BEILKE, MAYOR, CITY OF PICO RIVERA; 

DAVID SPENCE, MAYOR, LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE; RICHARD 

CLARK, DIRECTOR, CONSUMER PROTECTION & SAFETY DIVISION, CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION; RICK 

RICHMOND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALAMEDA CORRIDOREAST CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY 

Mr. BEILKE. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman, Members of 

Congress. Is it on? Now it is really loud. 

Good afternoon. As mayor of the city of Pico Rivera and a board 

member of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, I thank 

you for the opportunity to address you today on the issue of railroad safety. 

I am proud to speak on behalf of the 27 cities and more than 2 

million people that make up the Gateway Cities COGs, as well as 

for the 66,000 residents of Pico Rivera. 

While the concerns expressed in my testimony are based on our 

own experiences in Pico Rivera, you can rest assured that these 

same concerns are shared and echoed by every——

Ms. BROWN. Excuse me; just one second. Your mike——

Mr. BEILKE. I noticed that too. 

Ms. BROWN. Do we have another mike that he can use? 

Mr. BEILKE. Thank you. This is better. All right. I’ll begin again. 

Thank you. 

17

As the mayor of the city of Pico River and a board member of 

the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, I thank you for the opportunity to address you today on the issue of railroad safety. 

I am proud to speak on behalf of the 27 cities and more than 2 

million people that make up the Gateway Cities COGs, as well as 

for the 66,000 residents of Pico Rivera. 

While the concerns expressed in my testimony are based on our 

own experiences in Pico Rivera, you can rest assured that these 

same concerns are shared and echoed by every member of the 

Gateway Cities COG. 

There is no doubt that the Gateway Cities benefit from a superb 

transportation infrastructure, an intricate system of road, rail, air 

and sea routes, that have made the Gateway Cities the industrial 

powerhouse of Los Angeles County. 

There is also no doubt that the completion of the Alameda Corridor will bring even more economic development opportunity and 

prosperity to the region and to the individual Gateway Cities, including Pico Rivera. 

But the railroad component of this ambitious project comes with 

a price. 

The addition, by BNSF, of a 15-mile long third track through 

Pico Rivera and neighboring cities has raised many new concerns 

about pollution, congestion, noise and safety. By the year 2010, 

when the Alameda Corridor is fully operational, rail traffic is expected to triple. 

In our case, that will mean more than 300 trains a day through 

the very heart of our city. 

The triple track project and the pending construction of the 

Passons Grade separation have served to refocus awareness on our 

sometimes tenuous relationship with railroads, a relationship that 

began with the community’s very birth in the 1850’s. 

Three major railroads now slice through our city, bringing with 

them over 100 trains a day. Thousands of vehicles and pedestrians 

are forced to cross at any one of our four at-grade crossings every 

single day. The majority of those pedestrians are students on their 

way to and from school. 

The lives of all Pico Rivera residents are affected by trains every 

day and the potential for catastrophe is extreme. 

In Pico Rivera, when we talk about the prospects of railroad disaster, we don’t talk in terms of ‘‘if,’’ but rather, in terms of ‘‘when.’’

In fact, much of the city’s emergency preparedness training is 

centered around the scenario of a major railroad disaster, and we 

have already come close. 

In just the past four years, two close calls have placed our community in jeopardy. In the first incident, a runaway train careened 

through the city before deliberately being derailed in Commerce. In 

the second, a train derailment on the eastern approach to the city 

damaged houses and property. 

Thankfully, nobody was injured. But in other incidents, we have 

not been so fortunate. Over the past six years, we have lost four—

let me correct that. Since this testimony was presented to you, we 

have lost five residents in railroad accidents, one of them a 15-

year-old high school student who was a classmate of my son in 

high school. That is five too many. 

18

But train derailments and collisions are not the only railroad-related concerns that are a daily factor of life in Pico Rivera. 

The railroads continue to cause other health-related and qualityof-life problems that adversely impact our residents. 

It is not unusual for trains to idle for hours, sometimes blocking 

at-grade crossings. As incredulous as this may sound, some of these 

blockages have occurred when train engineers have slipped into the 

local 7-11 for a cup of coffee. In one incident, a group of residents 

informed our sheriff of an engineer that actually left his train to 

have lunch in a local restaurant. 

While the trains idle with their engines running, tons of pollutants, together with diesel and exhaust fumes, pour into our neighborhoods, vehicular traffic comes to a standstill and emergency response vehicles are severely hampered from reaching critical destinations. 

And of course at any time of the day there are those incessant 

whistles. 

Another major concern for our city is access to rights-of-way of 

the railroads. Over the past few year, we have spent millions of 

dollars on public safety enhancements, community infrastructure 

and beautification improvements. We also launched a campaign to 

rid our community of the scourge of graffiti, a campaign so successful, that it has resulted in a 60 percent reduction in graffiti. 

Our residents take great pride in the way their neighborhood 

looks and we all recognize that. Yet railroads rights-of-way remain 

eyesores. Despite all of our positive efforts and improvements, the 

railroad rights-of-way remain graffiti-ridden, trash-infested dumping grounds, that only serve as a sanctuary for vandals, criminals 

and transients. 

Access to these rights-of-way on a case-by-case basis by city personnel is imperative, if we are to be fully successful in our efforts 

to enhance the quality of life of our residents. 

At town hall meetings and in resident satisfaction surveys, railroad safety, noise and pollution issues constantly rate among the 

highest concerns and complaint from our residents. 

These concerns and complaints are well-founded, and a constant 

source of frustration for elected officials due to the railroad companies’ reluctance or outright refusal to respond to safety, health and 

rights-of-way issues in a timely manner. 

Despite these setbacks, the city of Pico Rivera continues to take 

a proactive leadership stance in improving railroad safety and, in 

some cases, has met with limited success and support from the railroads. 

In the year 2000, we developed Railroad Safety Awareness Week, 

an innovative partnership between the railroad companies, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the El Rancho Unified School 

District, and Operation Lifesaver. 

The week included school presentations, first-responder training 

for safety personnel, school bus drivers and city work crews, and 

‘‘officer on the train’’ ride-alongs to enforce railroad crossing laws 

for pedestrians and motorists. 

In 2005, Pico Rivera was instrumental in the formation of a coalition of municipalities and agency stakeholders affected by the 

BNSF triple track project. The goal of the coalition is to approVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
19

priate sufficient funding for all vital grade separation projects associated with the project, and to work together to mitigate ongoing 

railroad health and safety issues. 

Pico Rivera has already begun the acquisition process for the 

long-awaited Passons Grade Separation Project. Passons Boulevard 

is one of the busiest thoroughfares in our city. When completed, the 

grade separation will have a major positive impact on the Pico Rivera community. But with rail traffic expected to triple within the 

next three years, and with three at-grade crossings remaining in 

our city, it will not be the end of our community’s concerns relating 

to safety, noise, pollution and traffic delays. 

We have been working with the railroads for several years now, 

and have met with some limited success. However, the biggest 

issue we face is that we are just one small community while the 

railroads are national entities. 

We are very proactive while the railroads continue to be reactive 

at best. 

In the near term, we strongly urge Congress to assist local communities by mandating a more aggressive and responsive role for 

the railroads to play in this era of massive railroad expansion 

throughout our cities and communities, particularly as this expansion relates to health and safety concerns. 

Additionally, we ask that the railroads be mandated to grant access to their rights-of-way by cities and communities on a case-bycase basis, in order to mitigate safety, trash, graffiti, and vandalism concerns in a timely fashion. 

Congress also needs to address the most significant issue of 

transportation approximations for the most impacted grade crossings, that will eliminate, or at least reduce, the incidences of fatalities and property damage suffered by local communities in a major 

railroad corridor. 

I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have, and 

on behalf of the city of Pico Rivera and the Gateway Cities COGS, 

I thank you for your time. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mayor. We try to adhere to the five minutes. 

Mr. Spence, it’s going to be left with you now. 

Mr. SPENCE. Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much. Chairman 

Brown and congressional Members, thank you. Grace, you look 

very comfortable up there in that chair, like you have been there 

before. 

My name is David Spence and I’m the mayor of La Canada 

Flintridge, and president of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. 

Eleven years ago, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments 

put together a project to mitigate the impacts of goods movement 

and safety and air pollution, and so forth, that you have all discussed in the valley. 

Our valley represents about 2 million people and we have 31 incorporated cities and three unincorporated areas in the LA County 

of the San Gabriel Valley. 

Our cities agreed upon an action plan, a number of years ago, 

and we created the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority, 

20

and our executive director, Mr. Rick Richmond, will give you some 

details, further, about this particular rail improvement project. 

I would like to discuss financing briefly, challenges that our local 

officials have faced while putting together this plan to reduce—or 

increase the quality of life in the area, has been difficult. We have 

used local, State, and Federal funds to make this project work, and 

the COGs been active, working with Congress and the State legislature since 1999, and are grateful for the funds that we have received, which is approximately $560 million to complete the $1.4 

billion ACE project. 

Our local officials have also worked with the State of California 

to recognize the urgent need for investment in rail safety and goods 

movement infrastructure. Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration has put together and completed a State Goods Movement Plan, 

and we believe that this Committee would be served well by looking at this plan, when you consider clarifying the State and Federal roles in goods movement. 

Our local officials actively work to support the California State 

Highway bond measure, and in the San Gabriel Valley, we had one 

of the highest voting participations for the State of California, and 

it is because all the local representatives, the mayors and the council members, got behind this project. 

The bond includes about $250 million for grade separations. Unfortunately the goods movement infrastructure investment is so 

great, that these funds are merely a down payment on the project 

that we are trying to accomplish. 

Despite all the efforts of local agencies and the State, we don’t 

really have sufficient resources to facilitate the national trade corridors without a stronger Federal role in this partnership. Our 

COG recommends that the Committee consider a more defined 

Federal role for goods movement, and we hope that you will seriously consider a dedicated firewalled freight trust fund for making 

those improvements, to increasing the safety, not only in our area 

but across the country. 

Our cities believe that ACE is a national model of how local, 

State and Federal agencies can work together to improve rail safety, congestion, and emission reductions triggered by the ever-increasing surge of goods flowing through California to the rest of the 

country. 

Thank you for allowing me to express these opinions today. I left 

50 seconds for my next colleague. 

Mr. CLARK. Madam Chairwoman, and Congresswoman 

Napolitano, thank you very much for having us here today. My 

name is Richard Clark. I am the director of the Consumer Protection and Safety Division of the California Public Utilities Commission, a position that I have had for the last seven years. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony 

which reinforces the Commission’s former executive director’s testimony, Steve Larson, which was submitted to the Subcommittee on 

January 30th of 2007. 

Today, I would like to endorse that testimony and expand upon 

the State of California’s need and desire for Congress to amend the 

Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970. 

21

The FRSA, as currently written, contains an express preemption 

provision, which Federal judges have interpreted to preempt State 

law in virtually all railroad safety matters. Consequently, the end 

desired by the railroads, maintaining a uniform national regulatory 

scheme, has replaced the original intent of the law, increasing railroad safety, by allowing States to fill gaps in Federal railroad safety regulations. 

The California Public Utilities Commission, the California legislature, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the National Conference of State Transportation Specialists and the Association of State Railroad Safety Program Mangers, 

have all endorsed removing subsection 1 from 49 U.S.C. section 

20106, such that State railroad safety regulations will be lawful so 

long as they don’t conflict with Federal law and/or they don’t establish an undue burden on interstate commerce. 

We, at the California Public Utilities Commission, have been in 

the railroad safety regulatory business since our creation as the 

California Railroad Commission in 1911. The State of California 

has regulated railroads operating in our State since 1876. Therefore, we know a thing or two about railroads and railroad safety, 

which is precisely why we are so committed to rebalancing the authority at the State and Federal governments in the railroad safety 

arena. 

While the uniform regulatory scheme for railroad safety works 

very well in some incidents, it does not work in all circumstances. 

Ten years ago, the California Public Utilities Commission issued 

rules to provide for mitigation of local railroad safety hazards within California in our Decision No. D-97-09-045. It took us four years 

of very hard work to develop those rules. 

We worked long and hard, employed both binomial and multinomial statistical analyses, took round after round of comments 

from the railroads and many other interested parties, and thoughtfully developed rules that were designed to improve railroad safety 

in 19 local safety hazard sites in California, sites where the grade 

and curvature were extreme, and sites where significant numbers 

of derailments had occurred. Nineteen sites may sound like a lot, 

but as you can see from the map displayed before you on the wall, 

local safety hazard sites comprise a total of 4.2 percent of all railroad tracks in California and require the application of only six 

types of rules. 

Track-train dynamics rules. Training. Track Standards. Dynamic 

braking. End-of-train devices and defect detectors. 

California Public Utilities Commission has spent the last 10 

years in court fighting against the railroads’ preemption arguments. All the while, the railroads have been implementing, albeit 

frequently after catastrophic events, the very rules that we attempted to put in place 10 years ago. We desire to be in a better 

position to prevent accidents, rather than continuing to be in a position that responds to accidents. 

We, like other States, have experienced significant numbers of 

unacceptable major railroad crashes. Before I go through the list, 

there’s no counter telling me how much time I have left, so I hope 

I hit the five minute mark here. I will go quickly through the list. 

22

May 12, 1989. San Bernadino, at the bottom of Cajon Pass, a 

runaway SP train derailed. 

July 14, 1991. A Southern Pacific train derailed near Dunsmuir 

into the river. 

July 28, 1991. A Southern Pacific train was involved in a derailment near Seacliff. 

On December 14, 1994, a runaway train owned and operated by 

the Atchison-Topeka collided with a stationary UP train. 

On February 1, 1996, a runaway train at Cajon Pass. 

January 12, 1997. Cima grade near Kelso, lost brakes and ran 

uncontrolled train. 

September 8, 2002, at Colfax, 21 cars derailed three miles east 

of Colfax. 

March 21, 2003, at Cliff, California, eight cars derailed. 

June 20, 2003, Montclair, 37 cars rolled away and continued rolling for 33 miles as a runaway train. 

October 16, 2004, at Pico Rivera, derailed 11 cars. 

December 10, 2004, head-on collision between two freight trains. 

April 4, 2005, in Slover, California, 13 cars derailed, nine of them 

with hazardous materials in them. 

May 28, 2006, a UP freight train derailed and collided with another UP freight train. 

June 14, 2006, a head-on collision on the siding at Kismet. And 

November 9, 2006, a rail grinding train was a runaway train on 

the Donner summit. 

Let me close by quoting from the Commission’s 1997 local safety 

hazard regulation decision. That which was said then is still true 

today. 

Quote. ‘‘Following repeated catastrophic rail accidents and upon 

direction provided by the California legislature, we have availed 

ourselves of the authority provided by Congress to impose the safety precautions necessary to eliminate or reduce essentially local 

safety hazards. 

‘‘In doing so, we have taken great pains to ensure that this Commission has done nothing to weaken or conflict with the rightful 

and valuable exercise of Federal jurisdiction. 

‘‘The Commission has also carefully and thoroughly considered 

every safety measure to ensure that these measures do not unduly 

or unreasonably burden interstate commerce. 

‘‘We implement these regulations not out of any sense of competition or dissatisfaction with the FRA, but, rather, out of sheer necessity to protect California’s people, its environment and its commerce against the disastrous consequences of recent rail accidents 

and toxic spills. 

‘‘In issuing this decision, we intend to complement the FRA’s efforts and hope that both the railroads and FRA will join us in securing greater safety and fewer accidents in railroad operations in 

this state.’’

Thank you for the time. Trains are getting longer and more frequent. The State must be in a position to keep pace with change 

to prevent accidents in our constituent communities. We would 

strike subsection 1 of 49 U.S.C. 20106, so that the States can reclaim their rightful authority. Thank you. 

23

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, and he needed your 46 seconds, Mr. 

Mayor. 

Mr. Richmond. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Congresswoman 

Napolitano. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today and give 

you a brief update on where we are with the ACE Project, and specifically its attempt to, or how it addresses some of the safety 

issues you are familiar with from our global perspective. 

For us, it all starts with the ports. The ports of LA and Long 

Beach, as you well know, are physically right next to each other. 

Collectively, they represent the fourth largest port in the world. 

They are about six times bigger than the next largest port on the 

West Coast, which is Oakland, and they are actually twice the size 

of all the West Coast ports combined, as measured by the amount 

of container freight coming through, and this past year, in the LA/

Long Beach ports combined, over 16 million container units came 

through the ports and that is expected to grow steadily over the 

coming years. 

The picture that we just left was one of the on-dock rail facilities 

at the Port of LA, and from there, the trains basically go up the 

Alameda Corridor, as you are probably familiar with, a fairly recently completed 20 mile route that takes trains from the ports 

area, and then 90 percent of those trains fan out to the east on two 

railroads, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, which is the 

southerly blue line on the map, and then Union Pacific, which are 

the two red lines that you see out to the north end of that map. 

About 50 percent of the boxes that leave the ports naturally 

would be attracted to use the railroad based on where they’re headed and the economics of moving those boxes. About 50 percent 

would naturally want to end up on the freeways, and that’s what 

you see as a result. 

This is the south end of the Long Beach Freeway, which basically 

is little more than a truck highway, almost all day and all night, 

be part of night, alone. So the thrust at the ports is to get more 

and more traffic off trucks and on to trains. 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t eliminate the problem, and as you 

have heard and know well, Congresswoman Napolitano as well, the 

trains create their own problems. 

We have a program in the ACE Corridor, and in this case I am 

talking about a four county corridor area, which I will get to in a 

moment, a smaller portion of it, but basically to deal with the impacts at crossings. We have over 130 crossings that we believe need 

to be dealt with in terms of eliminating the conflicts. There are 

over 13,000 hours of delay per day at these crossings. 

We need to do this basically because we want to eliminate grade 

crossing accidents and maintain the local economic viability. The 

group that I work for is a subset of that four county corridor, we 

are in the San Gabriel Valley as Mr. Spence mentioned, and in our 

part of the program we are working on 21 grade separations, safety 

improvements, serving our area which is about 2 million people. 

The project, when completed, will be about $1.4 billion. We have 

the first half of the program funded in terms of numbers of 

projects. Unfortunately, in terms of cost, construction inflation has 

24

been overtaking us and we are less than half-funded in terms of 

the need for funds. 

The first emphasis in the program was doing specifically safety, 

and every one of our crossings that had deficient conditions, we invested the money necessary to deal with the most clear and obvious 

safety problems, the major thrust being for the elimination of what 

is called gate drive-arounds, where motorists will get frustrated at 

not seeing a train at the crossing and do basically an S-curve 

through, around one gate and around the other, which, you know, 

is a highly unsafe practice and usually involved in any of the most 

serious accidents at crossings. 

We, effectively, through the construction of medians, or in some 

cases, installation of four quad gates, we believe we have effectively 

eliminated that practice in our area. 

I do want to mention, at this time, because a couple of you 

brought up the issue of the school safety concern, or school children 

safety. As part of our program at all of construction areas, we have 

instituted a school safety program. We have had briefings at over 

150 schools in the corridor and have distributed over 150,000 kits, 

safety kits to school students, to encourage them to be careful 

around railroads, particularly as obviously we are in construction; 

but at all times. Next. 

In addition to the safety program and all the major financial burden we have on the program is the elimination of crossings completely through what is called grade separations. We have completed two. The first one you see was opened about three years ago 

in the cities of Industry and West Covina at Nogales Street. We 

earlier this year completed a project at Reservoir Street in the city 

of Pomona. Those are both now in operation. 

We have a number of other ones in construction, as you see here, 

in varying degrees of completion. We are, as I mentioned, about 

halfway through our overall program in terms of number of locations, but not in terms of funding. 

Finally, I want to acknowledge that our favorite equipment operator there is on the job, recently, at every one of our project sites. 

We are looking for the remainder of the funding of this program, 

which is about $918 million for ten remaining grade separations. 

As has been mentioned earlier, we are actively working with a 

number of other interested parties around the Nation, and in advocating, as part of the authorization, we are independent from the 

reauthorization. Some establishment of some form of a dedicated 

goods movement trust fund. We think that this particular activity 

lends itself pretty well to that kind of an approach. 

You are dealing with a particular sector of the economy that is 

generating, frankly, a lot of revenue. It is generating a lot of private revenue. It is also generating a lot of Government revenue 

through customs and local economic benefits. 

So we think that there is a real opportunity here to tackle this 

program and this problem, which is major in terms of the Nation’s 

economy, without necessarily competing, head on, with the highway trust fund problems, which you are intimately familiar with, 

I am sure, from your position on the Committee. 

So we are going to be working hard for that. We are active, right 

now, at the State level. As has been mentioned, there is a major 

25

goods movement—a piece of the State transportation bond is specific for goods movement infrastructure and we are working to get 

release of those funds. That is about $2 billion in State funding, 

and we are active, right now, on a piece of legislation which is similar to an issue we would like to see at the Federal level, which is 

to institute container fees in the ports of LA and Long Beach, and 

Oakland, which would fund specifically air quality improvements 

as well as the infrastructure needed to move the goods through this 

area. 

With that, I will close and be happy to answer any questions. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you very much. I guess my first question 

would be for all four panelists. I understand, and Ms. Johnson, you 

may be interested in this question, but California is second to 

Texas in the number of grade crossings fatalities. What local challenge do you face in regard to grade crossing challenges? I guess 

from each one of you, I would like some input. 

Mr. RICHMOND. As I mentioned, we are hopeful that we will have 

eliminated them, at least in our jurisdiction. Basically physical improvements to the crossings to make it, if not impossible, very difficult for vehicles to drive around the crossings. Pedestrian control 

is a little bit more difficult. It is harder to control. But hopefully, 

through education and adequate safety provisions at the crossings, 

we will not see as many pedestrian crossing accidents. 

Ms. BROWN. One follow-up with you. I notice that you indicated 

that you wanted to eliminate the whistles that the trains blow. I 

was elected 25 years ago, and that was the first bill that came up 

that I was against, because studies show that when you do away 

with the whistles, the accidents go up. So I mean, how do you address that? 

Mr. RICHMOND. The slide where we identified elimination of 

whistles at grade separations, that does eliminate them——

Ms. BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. RICHMOND. —and we do accomplish that at grade separations. A lot of the safety improvements that we have made are, particularly in one city where there is an application for what is 

known as a quiet zone, which you may be familiar with, which is 

authorized under Federal Railroad regulation, that is the location 

where we put in four quad gates to effectively seal off the crossings, completely, and based on that and based on the Federal regs, 

we believe those locations will qualify for a ban on whistle blowing 

through the city. 

It happens, in many cases in Southern California, the communities have grown up significantly around the railroads. They may 

have been rather remote, when railroads were first built, but now, 

for example, in the city of Pomona, it’s the largest city in the San 

Gabriel Valley, over 140,000 people, and the railroad literally goes 

right through the heart of town, and virtually everybody that lives 

in that city, and every business and every business district is pretty significantly affected, and we have about 90 trains a day going 

through Pomona. 

And as you can imagine, the whistle blowing is almost incessant, 

and so I think it is an important issue. We have encouraged and 

helped the city to meet lower requirements to come up with a safe 

26

way to secure those crossings, but the local interests are pretty significant in terms of the impact to the whistle blowing. 

Mr. CLARK. Your question was to local issues, and since I work 

for the State, I am probably not an appropriate person to answer 

these questions, so I will pass the mike. 

Mr. SPENCE. Rick did a wonderful job of explaining, actually, 

what we have done in the San Gabriel Valley. It has been very effective, and I would urge you to make it possible for other communities. As a mayor of a city, we need to keep things quiet. Fortunately, I don’t have any trains running through my town, but what 

Rick just said is very effective and we are happy to support that. 

Mr. BEILKE. As I stated in the testimony, we have four grade 

crossings, and one of which we are doing a Passons grade separation but at a cost of, you know, $43 million to do that. So it doesn’t 

look too positive for our other three at this moment, but our city 

is going to look furthermore into the quiet zone criteria. As we talk 

about the four quads being installed for the quiet zones, we actually have one crossing that is a slow train crossing. It is obviously 

not the Metrolink, it is a slow crossing, but there are no barriers 

there at all. There are flashing lights. And so we have some catching up to do to ensure the safety of our residents. 

But at this point, right now, actual precautions as far as possible, you know, cover the dividers so they can’t grow around the 

gates. Those are things that we are going to be looking at in our 

city. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Napolitano. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

How is your working relationship with the railroad communities? 

Mr. BEILKE. You know, in all fairness, it has improved over the 

past couple of years. It reached a pinnacle where the complaints 

were too obvious and too egregious. We would refer our residents 

at community meetings to call the Sheriff’s Department, because 

calling city hall was, for the most part, useless. But we have seen 

improvements, and daily improvement is coming. It is doing dialogue through communication. I did meet, earlier this week, with 

some union officials, and I really do see the cooperation coming. 

Unfortunately, a lot of the issues, I think, that we need to resolve, are monetary, and of course that is a whole other issue there. 

But overall, though, the communications has got to be the key to 

developing a collaborative relationship, to help us get through 

these issues. 

We understand the necessity of the railroad. We understand the 

railroad was there before us. But by the same token, we all need 

to be good neighbors. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Clark, do you feel that the States need additional regulatory authority? As you have heard, critics have said 

that giving States regulatory authority over railroads will hinder 

interstate commerce and we wouldn’t want to do that. We don’t 

want to slow down the movement of goods across the country. 

But how can we work, collaboratively, to be able to make that 

happen? 

Mr. CLARK. Well, the first thing is clear and good communication 

of course. But I think we need to both be in a somewhat equal 

power relationship also, because at this point in time we have no 

27

leverage with the FRA. We have no leverage with the railroads, essentially, except on narrow items. 

And so in terms of interfering with interstate commerce, it has 

never been the commission’s intention to interfere with interstate 

commerce. In fact, derailments and major accidents interfere with 

interstate commerce also. 

And so it is always a balance. That is why we spent so many 

years looking at safety measures to be employed just in the local 

safety hazard areas that we have identified. I hope that answers 

your question. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. It does, but is there enough, or adequate cooperation between the State, the Federal, and the local governments, to maintain safety in our communities? And what can be 

done to make that better? 

Mr. CLARK. Again, communication is—and spending the time to 

be able to communicate with all the people who are involved in the 

decisions is essential. 

Money, of course, helps incredibly, when it comes to the grade 

separations and the sorts of crossing problems and blocked crossings, and those sorts of things that you see, and the sorts of problems that these folks have brought to your attention here today. I 

hope that answers your question. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Well, I would like to have input from some of 

your staff, because I know we have great support from them. 

Mr. CLARK. I appreciate that. We try to make them as available 

as possible to you. We work with Operation Lifesaver to bring 

things to the attention of folks. We work with the local fraud departments. We have been working with the Office of Homeland Security and the Office of Emergency Services, and as many different 

agencies as we can possibly work with. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Chief Nieto is in the back. 

Mr. CLARK. Hi, Chief. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

A question to Mr. Richmond. Have you had concerns with the 

Government and the railroad industry concerning your ability to 

complete the safety improvements? 

Mr. RICHMOND. To complete the safety improvements? No. We 

have not. We have had good cooperation, I think, on all fronts. We 

would, I think, benefit from more support, particularly support that 

translates into the cost of building some of the projects from the 

railroad. I think that they take the position that the grade separations are for the benefit of the crossing traffic, not for theirs, and 

frankly——

Ms. NAPOLITANO. That is a difference of opinion. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Yes, and that has been the way it has been for 

a long time. I think we would benefit from some, I think, help, in 

the way we go about the projects, it would keep the costs down, but 

in terms of, you know, being willing to participate and supporting 

the projects when we need work done, and things of that sort, we 

have good support. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. The last question, and this is how is the Alameda Corridor able to finance a trench, and why was that not extended into the San Gabriel Valley? 

28

Mr. RICHMOND. The Alameda Corridor was financed largely 

through user fees, tolls, if you will. There are payments made for 

every container that operates on the corridor. It is, unfortunately 

for us, a fairly unique situation. The project represented basically 

a right of way, and an ability to move goods out of the ports, that 

didn’t exist without the project. 

In other words, the routes that the railroads had coming out of 

the ports were wholly inadequate to deal with the demand. As a 

result, the ports put together a program which, in the first instance, paid about $400 million in cash to the railroads to buy 

rights of way, so they started off with revenue from the project, and 

then they basically voluntarily agreed to use the Alameda Corridor, 

you know, for their trains, and then they paid a toll based on that. As a result, it was, out of a $2 billion construction cost, about a 

billion-six, is user fee financed. Unfortunately for us, as you go east 

of the north end of the Alameda Corridor, the capacity of both railroads is significantly greater. The Union Pacific has two lines going 

east and the Burlington Northern has one line, which is in the 

process of being triple tracked. 

So their position is it is not the same circumstance as they faced 

coming up out of the ports, that they do have infrastructure of 

their own that they feel is adequate. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. That makes a lot of sense. In other words, it 

can all stop in Commerce and instead go by air somewhere because——

Mr. RICHMOND. Yes, and I think we are going to—unfortunately, 

I think we are going to need to look to, I hope, a similar concept 

of user financing. It may not be as predominant as in the case of 

the Alameda Corridor. It may not pay for 80 percent of the cost. 

But I mentioned the issue of container fees. That is one of the 

sources that we think is a logical way to pay for what needs to be 

done in areas that are not the same as the Alameda Corridor. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. BROWN. You had a follow-up, sir? Yes, sir. 

Mr. SPENCE. Chairman Brown, I am being told that in the LA 

Basin, where custom taxes are collected, all of those funds go to the 

Federal Government and to just general use. We are wondering if 

there is any way that a portion of those custom taxes, the increase 

in what is going to take place from now on, be dedicated to help 

finance some of these safety issues. 

It has been talked about by local council members, by our Alameda Corridor East, and this is just a thought that you might take 

back and look at. I don’t know if it is possible. But it would be one 

way to bring more funds into the issue that we are trying to solve 

here today. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, sir, it is something that we can take back, but 

my understanding, the custom tax for the inspection, and we want 

to get to the point that we inspect all of the cargoes that are coming in, and so that was what we passed with the 9/11 bill. So, you 

know, we are going to have to look at revenue sources. 

And I was thinking, can you tell me what role does the railroad 

play in the funding of these railroad crossings. 

Mr. RICHMOND. The grade separations are the more expensive 

parts of this whole program. There is actual Federal regulation 

29

that limits the railroad contribution to 5 percent, if there are Federal funds involved. 

Locally, we have a 10 percent—if it is only State funded, no Federal funds, there is a 10 percent funding for the railroad. But on 

the federally-funded projects, which many of ours are, there is Federal regulation which actually limits their participation to 5 percent. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much.. 

My questions will be very simple. Where there is a accident at 

a crossing area, where a pedestrian or a local driver or something 

is involved, is it considered a traffic violation? 

Mr. CLARK. Is it considered a traffic violation? Usually, it is considered a traffic violation. We investigate all of those. Here, in the 

State of California, we investigate all of those that involve either 

a death or a major injury. 

Ms. JOHNSON. What kind of fees do you charge for the violation? 

Mr. CLARK. I believe it is $271 for trespassing on the right of 

way, and the citation for crossing, driving around the gates or violating a crossing is a criminal misdemeanor. 

Ms. JOHNSON. What kind of revenue do you get from that? 

Mr. CLARK. The State of California doesn’t get any revenue from 

that. That goes to the locals. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Okay. Well, I notice that there is a need for additional dollars, and I was trying to figure out how we could get 

them. The Federal Government really does not have them. But I 

want each of you to tell me how you would help to raise the revenue to get some type of additional funding. Cause every time we 

talk about—you know, the only way we have is raising taxes, and 

every time we mention that, we get beat down. 

So I know you must have some way you have thought about, that 

we could get the money for it. 

Mr. RICHMOND. You know, our project has been funded basically 

as a partnership, 40 percent federally funded, 40 percent State 

funded, 20 percent locally, and railroad funded. 

I think, as you look around, I think you can identify that there 

are benefits that spread across all those various entities. The Federal side. We talked a little bit about the fact that there is a lot 

of customs revenue that does get generated by this activity. Obviously, for ports area, trade policy is what drives the business, and 

the fact is that Federal trade policy is what is causing a lot of what 

is going on, and we are not against it or adverse to it, but, obviously, it is the cause of what is happening in terms of the explosive 

growth we are experiencing. 

So that I think makes an argument for some Federal share. I 

think there is State—the State obviously benefits. It is a major economic engine for the State government also, so there is a State 

role, and I am now only talking about sort of traditional government type revenues. I think the big missing piece is what I would 

call the private beneficiaries. There is a whole string of basically 

private concerns involved in the logistics chain of international 

trade. 

It will end up, as most people, you know, would tell you, with 

the people who buy the products. I mean, it may take a while to 

30

work it through the system but it ends up with the people who buy 

the products. 

If you look at putting, as we are talking about, a $30 fee on a 

20-foot container, and you look at, let’s say, what that means to the 

price of a pair of $80 tennis shoes, it is probably pennies. So there 

is an opportunity there, in my view, which is the most screaming 

opportunity, to get participation from that part of the equation. 

So I think there is an argument for everybody being involved, because I think the benefits are either—the problem is either caused, 

or the benefits accrue across the board. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. Do you have any thoughts or are you 

just passing a pipe? Do you have any thoughts? 

Mr. CLARK. You know, it depends on what aspect of railroad safety you are talking about. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Any kind, but most especially where persons cross 

when they are not supposed to. Nobody wants to hear noise, but 

where does the responsibility lie? Is it local? It has to be some type 

of individual responsibility. And, you know, Government really is 

not a ‘‘cash cow.’’ We have to find ways to raise revenues. 

But I think more and more, the citizens of this country will have 

to take the responsibilities for what they do. I don’t believe in 

much being free, not even health care. I think people ought to pay 

for whatever they get, so they will understand the value of it. 

Now I just want to know from you, what would satisfy you to 

raise additional revenue? 

Mr. CLARK. Well, I certainly think in terms of the issues of people crossing in front of trains and trespassing on railroad property, 

that very vigorous enforcement of the local laws, and fines, will 

raise some money that can——

Ms. JOHNSON. But it also will teach people to respect. 

Mr. CLARK. Yes, ma’am. It is a double benefit there. And so we 

encourage the locals to enforce as much as they possibly can, understanding that they have other issues that they need to enforce, 

and limited police officers, and that sort of thing. But when you get 

ticketed once for crossing in front of the tracks or trespassing on 

the railroad, you are going to think about it and probably not do 

it again. 

And then it could be used to improve the signage, to improve 

fencing in a particular area where there is a trespass problem, in 

order to improve the signal devices at the crossings, and that sort 

of thing. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Let me just share with you that I didn’t think a 

whole lot about parking in a disabled, a handicapped parking spot 

one night, at about five minutes of the time the stores closed. But 

when I came out, I had a ticket, and it was $500. I have never done 

that again. 

Mr. CLARK. Yes, ma’am. 

And I don’t drive in a car pool lane in California. It’s $271. 

Mr. SPENCE. It’s higher now. 

Mr. CLARK. Is it? 

Mr. SPENCE. Yes. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Your comment? I mean, I really want to get some 

serious thoughts from you. 

31

Mr. SPENCE. Well, the only thing that I would say is that hopefully, we’re not going to get that much money from these fines because——

Ms. JOHNSON. But you might want to eliminate the violations. 

Mr. SPENCE. Well, I am not that police officer, and I believe all 

of those funds that would be fined for people violating these rules, 

would go to either LA County or to the local jurisdiction in which 

they violated the regulation. Isn’t that right, Council Member? 

Council Member. I am sorry. I still look at you as a Council Member. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Former. 

Mr. SPENCE. Former. 

Mr. BEILKE. Congresswoman, you pose an interesting question, 

and you are really challenging, I think, for us to ‘‘think outside the 

box,’’ and when I heard the question come up, locally, we are thinking of, you know, raising fines. I mean, a lotta cases of trespassing 

is by kids, and yes, I guess you could go after the families——

Ms. JOHNSON. They have to be taught as well. 

Mr. BEILKE. They do. They do. Right. And of course that is—you 

know, spending the money on the education can not only prevent 

that but obviously save lives. 

But, again, thinking outside the box, I am thinking of something 

that I am not saying I actually want to propose in my city, but a 

reverse user tax, in a sense, even those, the railroads that are putting the goods across, and we are used to taxing the railroads for 

the use, you know, we have a user tax in our city, it is 5 percent, 

and it generates about $4 million a year for our general fund, 

which provides vital services. 

So, you know, you are ‘‘thinking outside the box.’’ You know, I 

would not want to be the one to propose it in my city, but, you 

know, a half a percent increase to that for railroad safety, you 

know, I am sure the residents would rally against it, saying it is 

the railroads’ responsibility. 

You know, of course then you have all the other users that traverse through our city that aren’t paying the tax. 

But it poses an interesting question, and obviously I think it is 

one that this whole panel was—it is a tough one. It is always finding it is tough. I mean, you know that better than all of us up here. 

But that would be my only comment. Some sort of reverse tax that 

would actually affect the residents. 

And who knows? We are starting improvements at a defined 

amount. That may be a possibility. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, thank you. I ask that because I really am 

serious about how we could generate more revenue. But I am also 

very serious about how we teach people to follow the regulations, 

because most of the time this is not the railroads’ problem when 

they just violate that, and children have to be taught as well. 

Now we had some light rail accidents with kids just climbing 

over the fence because they didn’t want to go to the end of the 

block to go across where the light was—it was a new light rail system. 

And I met with the PTA and the parents, and I said, you know, 

you have some responsibility for teaching your children not to do 

this. And the younger the better. 

32

If you are going to blame the transit system for them violating 

it, then we never will get off first base. So we do have to start 

teaching our young people early. And they were all fired up that 

night. But when they left, they realized they had some responsibility. 

I just appointed a committee to come up with some answers, because young people have to be taught, and nothing is free anymore. 

We all have some responsibility for our own safety. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, and Ms. Napolitano, last 

question. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. Director Clark, many communities 

are planning to implement the quiet zones along the railroad 

tracks. Your opinion, you stated something along that line. But do 

they decrease safety around the railroad tracks, the quiet zones? 

You know, it was something that was brought up. 

Mr. CLARK. We are not sure yet because the evidence is not in. 

The quiet zone rules have not been in effect for that long, for us 

to be able to measure the safety. We are concerned. It is a total 

new paradigm to not have railroad whistles blowing at crossings. 

It is going to take people a while to get used to that. And then 

we just want to make sure that the supplemental safety measures 

that are put in place are such that they increase the safety to the 

same level as when the whistle is blown. That is what the law is 

designed to do. 

We certainly understand the noise impact on the local communities, and the hazards to health that is incumbent in that issue, 

and so we are watching and we will be measuring to see whether 

or not accidents happen in quiet zones. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Are you working with those communities that 

have a lot of rail traffic through their areas, such as the COGS? 

Mr. CLARK. Yes, ma’am. We work very actively with the local 

communities and try to get them section 130 money for improving 

the signaling devices. Section 190 money for grade separations. We 

try to get them money from the grade crossing maintenance fund 

also, to make sure that the signal devices work consistently. 

And when they present their quiet zone applications to us, we 

have about 11 or 12 of them at this point that have been approved. 

We have about 40 cities that have expressed interest. We go out 

and we do the diagnostic reviews with them, and we try to design 

a mitigation that fits that particular situation, so that it enhances 

safety and brings it again to the same levels as when it was——

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Are any of those along the corridor, the Alameda Corridor East? 

Mr. CLARK. Is Placentia in the Alameda Corridor- East? Pomona. 

The city of Pomona I think——

Ms. NAPOLITANO. That is my district; yes. 

Mr. CLARK. I think they started, just yesterday with a quiet 

zone. I could be wrong. 

Mr. SPENCE. — construction authority through South Pasadena. 

Mr. CLARK. We are certainly working with them also; yes. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Not in my area. 

Mr. CLARK. Right. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. No. But it is good to know that you are working with the communities, and the COGS I am sure might enterVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
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tain a presentation to the cities to understand what you have and 

how you have certain sections, that you can help them with the 

funding to be able to achieve that. Cause I don’t think they are totally aware of that. I know I was not, not that I am on the City 

Council anymore. 

Mr. Richmond, the status of the grade separation project in 

Montebello. I understand there is only one, and I know that they 

initially had said if they didn’t trench, forget it, we don’t want it. 

Is the city now working with you? 

Mr. RICHMOND. The city is actually, with some help from the 

MTA, has reinitiated an effort to revisit the discussion of what 

makes sense in the city. We have an adopted program that identified a grade separation. The city had wanted all the crossings in 

the city grade separated, and through construction of a trench, 

which, frankly, we don’t feel the resources are liable to be there, 

so we basically have pushed their project down on our list. It is still 

part of our program; but they were not ready to proceed. 

I am hopeful that they will reactivate their effort and that we 

will be able to come up with a mutually acceptable proposal. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. The Alameda Corridor, the Alameda CorridorEast differ in what aspect in the trench? That was built by 

LACMTA. In other words, it was planned. But there was nothing—

what was the cost? 

Mr. RICHMOND. The pure construction cost of the Alameda Cor- ridor was $2 billion. There was about $400 million in financing 

costs, cause they are paying it off over time. So depending on how 

you define it, it is either $2 billion or $2.4 billion. And remember, 

that is about a 20 mile single rail corridor. Our Alameda CorridorEast in just the San Gabriel Valley—I am not talking about San 

Bernadino, Riverside, Orange—just LA County—Alameda CorridorEast is about 70 miles and it has got, in effect, two separate rights 

of way. 

So money would be a much bigger proposition, were you to try 

to apply the exact same standard of putting it all underground. 

Our program has a limited application of that in one location in 

San Gabriel, where we really had no way to do it, other than to 

lower the railroad, and there may be other isolated situations. 

But because our crossings are fairly far apart, it would be rather 

expensive to put a trench through. But I guess our first goal would 

be to grade separate more than the 20 crossings we have planned, 

and right now, we don’t have enough funding for all of those. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you all for your presentations, and in closing, 

one last question for all of the witnesses. 

I would like to know, what is your working relationship with the 

railroads. Are they responsive to the local railroad safety concerns, 

and can you provide any examples? And we will start with you, Mr. 

Mayor. 

Mr. BEILKE. As I mentioned earlier, it is improving, and that is 

very positive. We have heard the concerns, repeatedly, and they are 

starting to step forward and offering their assistance. A major one 

we have right now is the condition of the right of ways, and that 

is one that I believe in. This past week, I met with the railroad 

lines, and they have pledged their support to work with that, to 

34

work with our city staff. You know, again, going back to my opening testimony about beautification of the city, when we see the 

landscaping kept up and the streets clean, and you look down a 

railroad line and you see the sagebrush and you see the shopping 

carts and the couches, you know, that is take some wrong direction. 

But they have pledged their cooperation. The railroad has in the 

past, as far as other issues we have had, as far as stopping at the 

railroad crossings and leaving their engines running. Those are far 

and few and in between these days, and I will accept their pledge 

as far as these rights of ways go, and take them up on that, and 

a lot of the members I received this past week meeting with the 

railroads, and I intend to have our staff follow up on it and see 

where this takes us. But I am very optimistic that we will achieve 

the results we desire. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. SPENCE. As president of the San Gabriel Valley Council of 

Governments, I hear from my colleagues in other cities, that the 

railroads are becoming much more cooperative, and I think that 

people like Congresswoman Napolitano has done a wonderful job of 

getting their attention, and helping that increased quality of relationship, is so evenly upgraded. So from what I hear, the cooperation has been very good, especially in the last year. 

Mr. CLARK. I would characterize our relationship with the railroads as being okay; but not optimal. We have seen some significant improvement. The California legislature has become quite involved in railroad safety in the last few years. They have about 

doubled our staff for railroad inspection. They passed AB 1935 authored by Assembly Member Bermudez, AB 3023 by Speaker 

Nunez, both of which dealt with lots of railroad safety issues and 

critical infrastructure protection on railroads also. 

Sometimes it has been difficult banging heads with them. Sometimes we have succeeded with just talking with them. 

If I might, there is one program that I think might answer Congresswoman Johnson’s question on revenue, that occurred to me as 

I was listening to the mayor, which is that in the State of California, we work with the local planning departments, and even 

though the railroads were there first, they were put there in order 

to attract commerce and trade. And so it is not unusual to find that 

there is going to be conflicts between people and railroads. 

And so we think the way to get out of much of this dilemma is 

to plan our way out of the dilemma. So we work with the planning 

departments and we try to encourage them to, if they are going to 

allow a housing development built on one side of the tracks and 

there is a school on the other side of the tracks, then the person, 

the company, whoever is building that housing development, needs 

to provide a safe way for children to get across the tracks. 

And so with user’s fees, or with some other sort of fee that is 

tacked on to the building, this is a program that we put into place 

and we recently have gotten even more staffing for this place because the governor’s office sees the benefit to planning ahead of 

time, and again, avoiding accidents instead of responding to them. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Our interaction with the railroad is primarily in 

the construction area, when we are trying to implement the project, 

and I can assure you that the railroad, Union Pacific, is extremely 

35

safety conscious on the construction side, and they keep a pretty 

close eye on us to be sure we are likewise and our contractors are 

likewise. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you all very much for your testimony. 

The last panel will come forward. We are going to have a five 

minute, only five minute break, and then we will start the final 

panel, please. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. BROWN. Are the other two panelists here? Mr. Smith and 

Mr. Ojeda. Okay. Good. 

I would like to welcome you all. You are our final panelists 

today, and our first witness is Mr. Chris Roberts, the regional vice 

president of the South Operations for the BNSF Railroad. Welcome. 

And the next witness is David Wickersham, the chief engineer 

for the Western Region of the Union Pacific Railroad. 

And our third witness is Mr. Tim Smith, the California State 

Legislative Board Chairman, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 

And the final witness today is Mr. Ojeda, presenter-trainer for 

California Operation Lifesaver. Welcome, sir. 

I want to try to adhere to the five minutes so we can ask questions. 

TESTIMONY OF CHRIS ROBERTS, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, 

SOUTH OPERATIONS, BURLINGTON NORTHERN SANTA FE 

RAILROAD; DAVID WICKERSHAM, CHIEF ENGINEER, WESTERN REGION, UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD; TIM SMITH, CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATIVE BOARD CHAIRMAN, BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS; JESUS OJEDA, PRESENTER-TRAINER, CALIFORNIA OPERATION LIFESAVER 

Mr. ROBERTS. First off, I want to thank you for the opportunity 

to appear here today on the important issue of rail safety. 

The South Operations for BNSF encompasses the entire State of 

California, so I am responsible for all rail operations. 

I know you have been given my written testimony, so in brevity, 

I just want to hit a couple of key points and there are some duplicate things that have already been said, and I don’t want to try to 

go over those again. 

But, obviously, Congress plays the most important role in rail 

safety through policy and legislative matters, and it has to do two 

things, I think. It has to ensure that we have a safe rail network 

and that we also allow the railroads to play the vital role they do 

in our national economy. Those are, I think, the overarching 

themes that we are trying to accomplish. 

I am not going to get into preemption and things like that, but 

I will talk about why, at least from our standpoint, we think that 

the regulatory authority, through the Federal Railroad Administration, and having standardized regulations across our networks are 

so vitally important, because if you think about a patchwork of different regulations and rules, and trying to not only train your employees to comply with those and understanding those standards 

becomes very, very difficult. 

If you take the BNSF Railroad, for instance, we operate in 28 

States and two Canadian provinces, and we look at local cities, muVerDate 0ct 09 2002 18:37 Feb 26, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\37369 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
36

nicipalities, and how complex they could become, we are very concerned about it. 

We do agree that participation in State agencies—a fine example 

here is in California, with the Public Utilities Commission, the 

CPUC, is very beneficial in assisting the FRA in enforcement of 

Federal rail standards, and also participating with the railroads. 

Regardless of the fact to whether there are statutory policies or 

whatever, it is in the railroad’s best interest, for not only our employees, the communities we serve, but our customers, to address 

rail safety issues. 

I am not here to disagree with that. We may disagree with how 

we get there, but I think the overarching philosophy is just that. 

And hopefully we can have some further discussion about any 

questions that I may answer for you through your questions. 

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Brown, Congresswoman Napolitano, Congresswoman Johnson. My name is 

David Wickersham and I am the chief engineer at Union Pacific, 

Western Region. I am pleased to be here today and I thank you for 

the opportunity to testify about Federal, State, and local roles in 

rail safety. 

Union Pacific is fully committed to rail safety. The safety of our 

employees and operations, and the communities through which we 

operate are our priority. 

This includes employing safe practices in the transportation of 

hazardous materials and implementation of the comprehensive program for homeland security. 

Union Pacific is also actively engaged in efforts to reduce emissions associated with our operations to improve air quality, and 

quality of life for our communities located along our rail lines. 

For instance, a single double stack train can move the equivalent 

of up to 280 trucks, and we would rather see them on our railroad 

than on the freeways. 

Union Pacific’s safety record continues to improve. We have 

made and continue to make steady progress in all three primary 

safety categories on our system. Since 2001, we have seen a 47 percent reduction in reportable employee injuries, a 29 percent reduction in crossing accidents, and a 26 percent reduction in rail equipment reportables per million gross ton miles. These gains are the 

result of a concerted focus on safety. We improved the training and 

communication process with our employees. We have enhanced our 

mechanical and track inspections with technology and with training, and our grade crossings, we have implemented a new strategy 

that centers on high-risk corridors and a partnership with local 

communities to eliminate redundant crossings and increase enforcement of traffic laws. 

Union Pacific is also actively involved with safety regulators at 

the Federal, State and local levels. An example of this is found 

here in the Los Angeles Basin. In addition to the significant investments we have made in improving our track, we interact on a daily 

basis with inspectors from the Federal Railroad Administration 

and the California Public Utilities Commission. California PUC inspectors are able to perform a variety of rail safety inspections for 

compliance with Federal standards. 

37

We have also devoted extra resources to address local concerns 

by increasing our testing of joint bars on our major east-west 

routes in the Basin. 

Working with the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation, and in accordance with Federal law, Union Pacific has 

also developed and implemented a hazardous material critical infrastructure security program. 

Here, in California, we are cooperating with California PUC, the 

governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and the Office of Homeland Security, to enable them to review sensitive security information relating to security assessments, identification of critical infrastructure, and infrastructure protection plans. 

We also are actively engaged throughout Southern California in 

addressing air quality and public health concerns. In 1998, under 

an EPA rulemaking, the railroads entered into an enforceable fleet 

average agreement with the California Air Resources Board, that 

will reduce nitric oxide emissions from all locomotives on the south 

coast, on average, by 67 percent, and diesel particulate matter 

emissions by 48 percent. Particulate matter emissions will be reduced by another 20 percent as a result of a 2005 memorandum of 

understanding with CARF. 

In addition, Union Pacific is introducing another 70 ultra-low 

emissions locomotives into the LA Basin. These locomotives cut 

emissions by 80 percent compared with the locomotives that they 

replaced. 

Uniformity of regulatory requirements for railroad safety is both 

necessary and critical to avoid a patchwork of different State and 

local programs that will disrupt rail movement of interstate commerce. 

By far, the safest railroad is one that operates with a consistent 

and integrated set of safety rules, practices, employee training and 

efficiency testing. Our trains and our employees cross State lines 

on a daily basis. Subjecting them to different rules would create a 

confusing and workable operating environment. 

Federal safety rules take into account the broad range of variability in railroading and provide for these contingencies. However, 

railroads cannot meet the increasing demands for goods movement 

if they are hampered by inconsistent regulations from different levels of Government across State lines and local municipalities. 

This concludes my testimony, and thank you again for giving us 

the opportunity to be here, and I would be happy to answer any 

questions you may have. 

Mr. SMITH. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman, and Congresswoman Napolitano, Congresswoman Johnson. It is a pleasure to be 

here. My name is Tim Smith. I am the State chairman for the 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, here, in California. We are part of the Teamsters Rail Conference. 

I am also the chairman of the National Association of State Legislative Board Chairmen for our organization, and on behalf of 

BLET National President Don Hahs, who was unable to be here 

today, I was asked to speak. We represent 30,000 active employees 

throughout the Nation. We also represent 70,000 active members 

of the Teamsters Rail Conference. 

38

I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to talk on the 

subject of our views on Federal, State and local roles in rail safety. 

My testimony today will focus on three aspects of what we believe are the appropriate Federal, State, and local roles in rail safety. 

First, I’ll address statutory and regulatory responsibilities. Then 

I will turn to safety and security of hazardous material shipments. 

Finally, I will close with some thoughts concerning pedestrian and 

highway grade crossings. 

The manner in which preemption is currently being enforced is 

unacceptable. Section 20106 of Title 49 of the U.S. Code, which is 

the Federal Rail Safety Preemption Provision, allows a State to 

adopt or continue in force an additional or more stringent law, regulation or order related to railroad safety, only when it, number 

one, is necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially local safety 

hazard. 

Number two, is not compatible with a law, regulation, or order 

of the U.S. Government. And number three, does not unreasonably 

burden interstate commerce. 

The final two conditions in the statute, incompatibility with Federal laws and regulations and burden on interstate commerce, are 

thresholds that are almost never exceeded by a proposed State or 

local law or regulation. 

However, Federal judge after Federal judge has preempted State 

and local attempts to regulate rail safety by repeatedly finding that 

the proposal is not necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially 

local safety hazard. 

In other words, the Federal judiciary is imposing its own judgment as to whether a local safety hazard exists, irrespective of the 

judgment of the State and/or local officials elected or appointed to 

make such determinations. 

Some courts have ruled that a lack of Federal regulation concerning a specific subject also preempts State and local action on 

that subject. This is called negative preemption. 

In response to this increasing judicial activism, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions has adopted a resolution recommending that Congress eliminate the local safety hazard 

clause of section 20106. We support this change because it restores 

an appropriate balance among the statutory and regulatory roles of 

Federal, State and local governments. 

Action to reform preemption is all the more important in our post 

9/11 world. 

Moving on to the issue of hazardous materials. Tragedies are no 

longer solely caused by accidents, as the terrorist attacks on oil and 

transit facilities in Spain and England in recent years have shown. 

The Chlorine Institute has reported that a 90-ton tank car, if targeted by an explosive device, could create a toxic cloud 40 miles 

long and 10 miles wide. Such a toxic plume, according to the U.S. 

Naval Research Lab, could kill 100,000 people in 30 minutes in a 

major metropolitan area. 

We support requiring risk and route analyses on a regular basis, 

and the development of primary and alternative routes for these 

materials as a matter of transportation planning strategy. 

39

We further believe that Federal, State, and local government 

should be in possession of sufficient information concerning times 

and amounts of shipments, so that they may fulfill public safety obligations. 

We do believe there is a role for all three levels of government 

to play in supporting technologies that assist in tracking shipments 

and developing procedures to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the length of time dangerous shipments may sit unmonitored 

or in an unattended facility. 

Now moving on to the third phase, grade crossings. While accidents and injuries at public highway rail grade crossings have declined by between one-third and one-half in the past decade, accidents at private crossings have declined by only 10 percent and the 

number of injuries in private crossing accidents has actually increased by 1 percent. 

The boundaries between public and private crossings are often 

blurred. There are over 94,000 private highway rail grade crossings 

in the United States, many of which are used by more than one individual. 

A private crossing should be defined as one used by a sole land 

owner or lessee. Once any other individuals routinely use the crossing, it should be no longer considered a private crossing but should 

be deemed a public crossing. 

We believe it is imperative that any private crossing that serves 

an industry should be held to the same standards that apply to 

highway rail grade crossing system signal requirements. 

The BLET feels that, at a minimum, all crossings should be required to have active warning devices that comply with a manual 

for uniform traffic control devices. 

Active warning devices can significantly improve the level of 

safety at these grade crossings. However, we would prefer that 

FRA prohibit the creation of new private crossings and work toward eliminating as many existing private crossings as possible, 

and we have made that position known to the FRA. 

If the FRA determines that it wants to allow the creation of new 

private crossings, then new private crossings should have active 

warning devices installed prior to use. If necessary, FRA should request enactment of legislation to address private crossings. 

There is one more area that needs to be addressed with regard 

to grade crossings. It’s called CISD, or Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, for crews involved in grade crossing accidents. To illustrate, you cannot imagine the terror a train crew experiences when 

their train comes roaring around a curve at full speed and a truck, 

car, or pedestrian is just ahead. You can’t blow the whistle long 

enough or loud enough, and your heart creeps up further into your 

throat with each passing yard as your closing distance races to 

zero. 

There are two absolute truisms when it comes to motor vehicles 

trying to beat trains at a grade crossing. Number one is that the 

train is going to take much longer to stop than the driver could 

ever imagine, and number two, sadly, is that all ties go to the 

train. 

On some railroads, crews who are involved in such an accident, 

no matter how serious, are expected to ignore the trauma they 

40

have just suffered and continue operating the train, in some cases 

after waiting for hours for the coroner to remove the deceased. 

A handful of railroads have taken a very progressive approach to 

CISD, while a few are completely uninterested. The majority in the 

middle deal with the subject to varying degrees. We believe that requiring, or for that matter, allowing a crew who has been traumatized by involved in a fatal grade crossing or pedestrian accident 

to continue operating their train presents a public safety hazard. 

I would like to take the opportunity today to advocate for the inclusion of CISD in any legislation that deals with highway rail 

grade crossing safety. 

This program should be available to all railroad workers involved 

in traumatic incidents while on the job. 

In our view, the State and local role in crossing safety is relatively simple, especially for a State like California. Full compliance and cooperation with the Federal program will result in significant improvement in crossing safety. We also would ask States 

and localities to take two other steps. 

One is to get tough, and I mean really tough, on enforcement 

against motor vehicle operators who violate laws governing motor 

vehicle operation over highway railroad grade crossings. 

Commercially-licensed drivers are governed by a complex set of 

regulations with respect to grade crossings, which include the type 

of cargo being trucked and the sort of crossing involved. 

We believe the frequency of motor vehicle drivers trying to beat 

the train would decline dramatically, if similarly harsh punishment 

was handed out to drivers not covered by these CDL penalties. 

So in conclusion, rail safety is a full-time effort, and there never 

are too few hands. When government at the Federal, State and 

local levels fulfill their respective roles, and coordinate their activities, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, safety 

is enhanced for all of our members and all of your constituents. 

Once again, thanks for the opportunity to present you with our 

views and I’ll be happy to take any questions you may have. Thank 

you. 

Mr. OJEDA. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you 

Members of the Subcommittee. I would like to start by saying 

thank you for including Operation Lifesaver in today’s hearing, in 

the respective roles of Federal, State, and local officials addressing 

rail safety. 

My name is Jesus Ojeda. I am a presenter-trainer for California 

Operation Lifesaver and a proud constituent of District 38. Presenter-trainer means I am certified to offer presentations to the 

public about the importance of practicing safe behavior around railroad tracks. 

I am also certified to train others to do the same. Operation Lifesaver is a safety education nonprofit program that is dedicated to 

eliminating tragedies at highway-rail grade crossings and along 

railroad rights of way. 

In one word, Operation Lifesaver’s success is attributable to its 

volunteers. These are individuals, approximately 3000 in number, 

who dedicate our time, energy towards educating the public on the 

dangers that are present on or near railroad tracks. 

41

Many of these volunteers agree to become certified presenters, 

trained to go out to schools and other community venues. Our State 

coordinator reaches out to the law enforcement community, bus operators, commercial drivers, emergency responders and others. 

Operation Lifesaver is the education component of the three E’s 

of traffic safety strategy. The three E’s are simple: education, engineering and enforcement. These three must work in tandem. Operation Lifesaver programs bring these elements together in a way 

that the public can understand. All of our information is age-appropriate. 

Here in California, we work very diligently to educate various 

communities across the State, from schools that are adjacent to 

railroad tracks to commercial drivers that have to cross railroad 

tracks somewhere in the State. 

California Operation Lifesaver is leading the way in outreach to 

non-English speaking populations. I am one of 14 presenters here, 

in California, and I am one of three presenter-trainers, bilingual, 

who share this message. 

We are the first State to train farm worker educators to become 

Operation Lifesaver presenters. 

Three California presenters and I have just returned from the 

National Conference of La Raza where we were part of the Latino 

Expo and we made great contacts to bring back to our communities 

and help support and educate our children, our community members. 

Some of the challenges that our operation faces, in some respects, 

we are a victim of our own success. Vehicle-train collisions, fatality 

and injury numbers have dropped substantially, and in the minds 

of some, are far less threatening than the loss of life we see on the 

nation’s highways. 

We need to disabuse policy makers, media and others of this notion. 

The consequences of train versus vehicle collisions are carried far 

beyond those of a single individual, and also affect family members, 

friends, communities. You are 20 times more likely to die in a collision with a train than within another vehicle. 

A vehicle collision also disrupts a highway railroad crossing for 

hours, gridlocking communities, impairing emergency response capabilities, and sometimes leading to derailments. 

As trains carry hazardous materials, the consequences can be 

even more deadly. 

Recommendations. Please continue to fund Operation Lifesaver’s 

program. Much of the funding works its way to the financial step 

programs in the State. In this regard, Operation Lifesaver commends your efforts, Congresswoman Napolitano, who amended the 

rail safety bill, including authorization for Operation Lifesaver to 

continue our safety education in our communities. 

Congresswoman Napolitano’s efforts would enable Operation 

Lifesaver to launch a new pilot program whereby we could offer 

targeted, sustained outreach to communities where risk is a greatest in terms of incidents, and we focus by population density near 

the tracks. 

If Congress approves this program, Operation Lifesaver would 

work very closely with community leaders, school districts, and 

42

public/private partners to develop and implement programs on a 

sustained basis to reduce the number of tragedies that occur on 

railroad tracks. 

In conclusion, on behalf of Operation Lifesaver and our national 

support center, I thank you, Members of the Subcommittee, for 

coming here to learn first-hand about the challenges of rail safety 

in one of our busiest corridors. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. I heard our transportation for our next 

meeting, but we are going to have our questioning, and I guess the 

first question goes to you, Mr. Roberts. 

First of all, let me commend you for BSNF initiative to develop 

the local train management system. Please tell us more about the 

deployment schedule of the system, what is involved in it, and is 

the system going to be deployed here in California? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, as you know we’ve had it in test and got approval from the FRA in 2003, in Illinois. Our next implementation 

is going to be in Texas between—actually, Oklahoma and Texas. So 

we are implementing that. Then we have plans laid out to 

progress, but it is an expensive endeavor. For our network, it will 

be well over $500 million. 

And our plan is, based on the other demands we have for capital, 

to continue to implement as long as our revenue and our returns 

are adequate to do so. 

Ms. BROWN. A follow-up. 

Mr. ROBERTS. It is a little bit hard for me to tell you what that 

timeline would be for our whole railroad because it depends on the 

economics and how the economy does and how well our railroad 

performs. But it is our intent, whether by regulation or not, it will 

be implemented on BNSF. 

Ms. BROWN. Track defects constantly rate as one of the two top 

causes of all train accidents. Your testimony indicates that all 

BNSF tracks is regularly inspected and the business main line 

route are inspected daily. In your opinion, what causes these accidents? Is it lack of technology, equipment failure, failure to follow 

up with inspections, with the regular inspections? How is it that 

the railroads still experience so many track defect accidents? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, part of it is—it is human-based. Some of our 

inspections are done, obviously, with people out inspecting, and 

people make mistakes. That is one reason that we have gone so 

much into technology. You know, you can get to a certain level with 

all of us make mistakes, and the next level, to get to the next level, 

you really need technology. 

So our efforts with rail detection, ultrasonic rail detection, and 

things, we do different standards, improving our standards for our 

rail infrastructure, and trying to get more on what I will call a 

proactive rather than a reactive basis, where we try to understand 

when something is going to fail, prior to it failing. And that is really the next level, and I think the technology, and even including 

what the ETMS system allows you to do, will help to that. It will 

detect a broken rail. 

And some parts of our weld, depending on the system and how 

it operates, you don’t have that rail fault detection after what we 

call an in-service failure breaks. 

43

So I think it’s twofold. It is continue to train our people, making 

sure that they follow the standards and regulations that we have 

in place, and then keep moving as technology comes on that will 

allow us to be safer. 

Ms. BROWN. I know that you heard the mayor’s testimony about 

the coffee break and I am certain that you dealt with it. Can you 

explain to us what happened with that. 

Mr. ROBERTS. I don’t know about the particular instance. I also 

read it in his testimony. But I assure you we don’t condone that. 

Ms. BROWN. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROBERTS. We have people that don’t always do what they’re 

supposed to do. We do have what we call our operations testing 

program, where we look at whether our employees are following 

the rules. There’s blocking crossings where they’re shutting down 

locomotives and complying with our idling policy. We have people 

that don’t do that. and we handle that in an appropriate way when 

we—but we will react to that and we appreciate when we are notified of those instances, and we will follow up with the individuals 

involved. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, sir. 

Ms. Napolitano. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Smith, Ive read with great interest, your reference to the 

employees that are involved in accidents, that are allowed to continue working, or even they must continue working, even after 

some tragic accident has caused trauma to them, to TSD if you 

will. I have a great interest in that issue, because it is true, that 

it is something, that it is necessary for them to be able to understand and deal with. 

Is there anything that needs to be done—and I don’t mean that 

to say that there is necessarily—but do the railroads allow time, 

do they provide enough health referral services to be able for those 

employees to continue working effectively? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe over the years, the rails, especially in California have improved greatly in that area. It was my experience as 

a locomotive engineer—I have, unfortunately, been involved in 

those kinds of accidents, and it is not a fun thing to continue your 

work all the way, the rest of the way that you have to travel. It 

kind of distracts you, it takes your mind off of things, and it is 

something that you can’t get out of your head. 

But we do have peer support on the railroads, that I am aware 

of, and we also have an opportunity for these people to get counseling, if need be, and the railroads generally are pretty good about 

getting these crews off the trains, and that includes Amtrak. 

But every once in a while, you get one that slips through the 

cracks, and unfortunately, you know, you take that on a case by 

case basis. 

But, you know, there is the individual who doesn’t get the relief 

that he needs, and, you know, those things need to be worked 

upon. 

But if the railroads’ reaction to this sort of an incident were 

standardized, then there would be no guesswork, everybody would 

be marching to the same beat, and then there would be no slipping 

through the cracks. 

44

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. A concern of course, in the last few 

years, has been the fact that I have been approached by individuals 

working for the railroad, indicating to me that they have very little 

training when they were cast into a role. Has that changed? 

Mr. SMITH. That is a major problem. As far as I am concerned, 

the training is totally inadequate. I understand that the railroads 

have been in a hiring frenzy for the last few years, and that has 

tapered off considerably, and in the rush to get employees out 

there, in the workplace to move the trains, we have a cookie cutter 

style of conductor and engineer that is created out there. 

I believe that that is a harbinger for trouble down the road, because these people do not get that practical experience that we 

used to get back in my day, when I was a young man coming up 

in the railroad industry. 

It is important for them to see all aspects of railroad life. Too 

many times, we have a brand new engineer out in the territory 

with a brand new conductor. It is a case of the blind leading the 

blind, and I have even heard of them, two people like that in that 

kind of a situation, having a trainee working with them as well. 

We just can’t condone that. That is something that is not acceptable. If anything, we need more training, not less training. I have 

seen some movements lately, from both the BNSF and the UP railroad, and I applaud those, but I can assure you that we need much 

more than that. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Madam Chair, I believe there is some portion 

of the railroad bill that addresses that and I am hoping that will 

help the situation. 

I will submit the rest of the questions for the record, Madam 

Chair, but I do want to introduce the representative from Senator 

Diane Feinstein’s office, Diego Gonzalez, who has been patiently in 

the audience. Diego, would you stand up. Thank you, sir. 

We did have the deputy chief of staff, Supervisor William Molina, 

but he had to leave, and we did have one of the councilmen from 

Montebello, one of the other cities that is affected by the ACE Corridor, and several other people who have come and gone, and I am 

sorry, I didn’t get a chance to think about introducing them. But 

Madam Chair, I really appreciate your being here. I know we are 

going to have to go. 

I would like to introduce a couple of things for the State, for the 

record. One is this letter from Supervisor Molina, and a picture of 

the industry brought to us by Chief Nieto, sitting in the audience. 

Chief, thank you very much. 

Ms. BROWN. Without objection. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Ma’am. I do have no time, and I 

will defer, and thank you very much. 

Ms. BROWN. Mrs. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I have no further questions, Madam Chair. I am 

ready to go. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 

I think I have one last question Mr. Smith, I just want you to 

know that I went personally to the training class and I crashed, because it is clear that the train cannot stop on the dime, and there 

is a lot of steel there, and even though I ended up with aid they 

fixed the grating, I know, for me—but it is important that we do 

45

have a strong educational program for the community and for the 

children, and so that they can understand what is involved when 

you go around those rail crossings. 

Do you want to respond to that? And in your testimony you 

talked about the private crossing and the public crossing, and can 

you tell me, in your opinion, is one safer than the other? 

Mr. SMITH. I’ll address that, the last part first. Typically, private 

crossings have no warning gates, no warning lights. They typically 

might have a stop sign and that is it; if that. So therein lies the 

inherent hazard. A lot of these private crossings are crossings that 

go over into industries. Trucks come in and out of there carrying 

hazardous materials, and other such things, and obviously, it poses 

a real threat, to not only the people that I represent but the people 

in the community as well. So that is a real concern. 

We need to do what we can to, number one, eliminate the crossings. If we can’t eliminate them, let’s put some crossing gates up 

there and make sure they are as safe as they can be. 

The second aspect of your question was addressing the educational aspect of grade crossing safety, and I applaud everything 

that Operation Lifesaver does, as far as getting out there to the 

public, to the children. I have been involved with it a little bit. It 

takes a lot of time, so I have to beg off. But they are probably the 

best answer towards the educational process in the State. In fact, 

they are nationwide, for that matter, and I have seen them do 

some great things. 

So to me, it seems to me that Operation Lifesaver is on the right 

track. They just need more support from all entities concerned. 

Ms. BROWN. And Mr. Roberts, any closing remarks you want to 

make? But I do have another question. I understand that the railroads participation in the signaling is what? 5 percent? Do you 

know why, the history, why is it capped at 5 percent? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Of course it was done with the Secretary of Transportation. There are two separate ones, I think, that the deputy administrator mentioned. It is 5 percent if it is partially federally 

funded. if it is not, then it is 10 percent. And it is not a case of, 

that we wouldn’t like to—I disagreed with one statement that Mr. 

Richmond made about Alameda Corridor East. Railroads do think 

eliminating crossings is beneficial to us. So I disagree with that 

statement that he made. 

And I think it is just a matter of, again, being able to fund. If 

you look at BNSF, 28 States, and tens of thousands of crossings, 

and an ability of how many we could fund at larger amount. It has 

to have, I think, a level of reasonableness, is why the Secretary of 

Transportation put those limits on, so it wouldn’t become a financial burden that the railroads couldn’t comply with. 

But I do think we need to think of other ways. I agree with funding mechanisms. However we decide to do it. I think we have got 

to be careful about fees. Believe me, I don’t want you to raise taxes 

either. 

But sooner or later, we have to understand, you know, we have 

to understand how they are assessed, I mean, from a higher level, 

whatever it is, how it is assessed, and then how are we going to 

ensure, through legislation, that it goes to what we want it to go 

to? 

46

I mean, too many times, it can be put in general funds and 

things like that, and that money doesn’t get to apply to what we 

are trying to accomplish. So I don’t think the railroads are necessarily categorically opposed to some kind of a fee structure but 

we just need to understand how is it assessed, and how are those 

funds applied, so we make sure that they go to what we are trying 

to solve. 

Ms. BROWN. Well, you know, I know that the railroads are operating in the black but it causes these accidents, and we need to figure out how can we best—I mean, because if we can eliminate most 

of these accidents, that would cut additionally the cost of operating 

the railroads, because that is built into, I guess, security. It is built 

into insurance. 

So it is built into what you have to pay out because of these accidents. 

Mr. SMITH. And I don’t disagree. But these are large amounts, 

and depending on what the solution is. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes. It is. 

Mr. SMITH. I mean, huge, large amounts. And I think whether 

you’re looking at railroad infrastructure or we look at highway infrastructure——

Ms. BROWN. Or bridges. 

Mr. SMITH. Or bridges. As a Nation, we have a complex problem 

to solve, and we have to really enhance what we have done, because we haven’t done things for several years. Which I agree with. 

But we have to be careful because we can have unintended consequences. If the burden becomes so heavy on a railroad, that it is 

no longer a viable transportation product, then it just, the freight 

then moves to the highway and we have got the highway infrastructure issues. So I think we have to be careful about whatever 

we do and understand what are the consequences of whatever actions we take. 

Ms. BROWN. I agree. Any closing remarks, sir? 

Mr. WICKERSHAM. Yes. I would just like to add a few comments. 

I would like to thank Congresswoman Napolitano. We first met two 

and a half years ago under very unfortunate circumstances. And I 

would just like to say we are a different railroad than we were two 

and a half years ago. We are much more community-responsive. I 

thank you for recognizing Lupe Valdez. Our company has placed a 

new position, we have reorganized a little bit, we have a new position, a vice president of Public Relations. We will have a position 

in California that Scott Moore—he is in the audience. He will be 

working with Lupe, actually, he is in a senior position, but I think, 

if you will, lined him up accordingly. 

Ms. NAPOLITANO. Hes senior to Lupe? 

Mr. WICKERSHAM. I don’t think so. Lupe will straighten him out. 

I thank you for recognizing her. I thank you for sharing with us 

the document on the deficient bridges in your district. I got that 

from Lupe a couple days ago. I have already passed that on to our 

bridge managers. That contacts are being made with Caltrans as 

we speak, cause that could cause us some problems. 

You got our attention. We replaced 82 miles of wood ties track 

with concrete tie track on our two main lines through your district, 

and we are going to continue that effort until it is complete. 

47

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. Smith, anything? 

Mr. SMITH. I just think that it is important for us to communicate. Thereby we educate, and I applaud everything you are 

doing here. I met with Congresswoman Napolitano for quite a time 

in Washington, D.C., here, a couple months ago. We definitely 

talked about some issues that are near and dear to railroad labor, 

and it is forums such as these, that we are able to get those out 

in the open and come to some kind of a reasonable solution. So, 

again, thank you for this opportunity. 

Ms. BROWN. Okay. Lastly. 

Mr. OJEDA. Yes. I would like to thank Congresswoman 

Napolitano, again, for everything you have done for Operation Lifesaver. I can guarantee you that we will continue working with our 

communities, our schools, our PTAs, to make sure that our safety 

message gets across to people. A lot of times, people are not aware 

of the dangers around the railroad and so it is our job to make sure 

that we get through to them. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN. We have two questions from Senator Feinstein’s office, and I am going to give it to you all, in writing, so that you 

can respond back to the Committee. 

And I want to thank, not just the participants, but the audience, 

and the Congresswomen for coming, and I thank the witnesses for 

their testimony and the Members for their questions. Again, the 

Members of this Subcommittee may have additional questions for 

the witnesses, and we would ask you to respond to them, in writing. 

The hearing record will be held open for 14 days for Members 

wishing to make additional statements or ask further questions. 

Unless there is further business, the Subcommittee is adjourned. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 5:50 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]

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