Note: The output shown below is from the Communication Access Realtime Translation 

(CART) system used in the Rooms and Spaces Subcommittee Meeting #6 and is generally

unedited. The CART system was used to provide an accommodation to persons with 

hearing loss and persons who are deaf, and was streamed in real-time and available to the 

public on the internet during the meeting. 

Thursday, November 20, 2014

United States Access Board

Rail Vehicles Access Advisory Committee

Rooms and Spaces Subcommittee Meeting #6

1:00 p.m.

CART Operator: C Cromartie

** The following is a Rough Draft transcript and not a verbatim record**

 Paul: Good afternoon, this is Paul Beatty, welcome to the sixth meeting 

of the subcommittee. Since anyone may participate in subcommittee 

discussions, [no] time for public comment has been scheduled for this two—hour 

call. It appears we have the CART chat function operating. So would those 

individuals only participating by CART, if you desire to make a statement or 

raise a question, please indicate it in the chat box, and we'll let the 

subcommittee chair know. When speaking, remember to give your name, and as 

a reminder, your next conference call is, —— I don't have any calendar in front 

of me. But we'll give you that at the end of the call.
»» We decided not to have one in December, as I recall. So it's January.

 Paul: Correct. Rose has already introduced everybody, so I'm going to 

turn the call over to Dennis Canon the chair of the subcommittee.

 Dennis Canon: Okay, thank you folks. The agenda is not long, and I don't 

know if anybody's got anything we need to do. The next steps is sort of like 

new business and deciding what we're going to do next. Anybody have questions 

or comments about the agenda? Hearing done, let's —— these are kind of in the 

reverse order. The document I want the look at first is basically the larger 

one, the original one which is down towards the bottom. It's dated September 

4th it's subcommittee report. As we discussed last time because of some 

comments that were made by Linda Martin about what the statute said with respect 

to having the restroom in every car, I looked the statute up, and by the I have 

a marked up copy of that —— by the way, I have a marked up copy of that which 

I think I should sent the Paul so he can put it up on the web, just so we can 

see it. And the issue there was that in the definition of "inner city rail" 

in the statute is Amtrak. So other things, even though they're running between 

cities, are not considered inner city rail for the purposes of the ADA. It 

maybe considered inner city for other statutes. And Amtrak, for inner city 

rail specifically says in order to be accessible a car has to have space for 

a wheelchair, a transfer space, a storage space, and a restroom. So every car 

in Amtrak from the statute has to have a restroom. That is not the case for 
things like commuter rail or any other private rail. And commuter rail is 

basically, it says if you don't have a restroom in a car for the general public, 

then you don't have to have a accessible restroom.

 I modified the scope. . When we looked over this the last time, the stuff 

that's still in red essentially says, take the Amtrak out of that issue of having 

a restroom in a second car. It sets forth the requirements. So that's not 

new. That was there last time. What's new, and I want to make sure I captured 

everything that we discussed last time, the new stuff is in green. And we talked 

about side transfer in the rest room, and there was a discussion about we should 

actually add a space for that side transfer. In other words, a clear space 

on the side of the toilet that you actually need to make the side transfer.

 And so what's in green, I don't know if you —— I think it was double 

underlined —— any way. It's the second bullet point says "allow side transfer 

to the toilet." And what's in green is clear floor space of 32X 54, and that 

it's measured. The 32 is measured from the outer rim of the toilet Bowl outward 

and the 54 is measured from the back wall of the toilet. So I wanted to make 

sure that I captured that. And the other thing that's new is the ANSI 

specification for vertical grab bars. So I wanted to discuss briefly, if people 

have got comments to see whether I've captured the things we discussed, and 

whether we need to add some additional provisions. So go ahead anybody.
»» This is Ken. I think this is just a typo in the version that was posted. 

Just it says 52 inches to be measured from the back. It's supposed to be 32 

by 54, right.

 Correct. Right. Right.

»» Ken: That's just a typo, but I think it was very important that we put in 

the side approach, the specific thing saying —— to allow a side approach. And 

I totally defer on the amount of space that's necessary. Because that's one 

of the things that I don't always understand is the exact spacing. But you 

know, the provision for side approach is really critical from what I'm 

understanding.

 Dennis: Right. And the numbers, the 32 by 54 are simply the numbers that 

we decided on already as being the space allocation we're going to give the 

a wheelchair. That's all that is. You're right. There is a ——

 Ken: I just don't remember what the numbers are. I just could see that 

there was a typo, that's all.

 Blair: Let's backup in the red text, on the scoping. And I know we've 

had some discussion about this. I had a brief conversation with Linda about 

what —— does the way it's worded, because it's in the statute, does it preclude 

or prevent Amtrak from receiving an equivalence in the of situation of trains, 

having spaces in adjoining cars but only one restroom between those. The 

impression I got that it does not preclude doing or attempting an equivalent 
facilitation, but obviously the burden to be on the railroad and the car builder 

to do that.

 Dennis: Right. That discussion actually had talked to Linda and Calvin 

yesterday in a group working on The Texas Central Railway which is where some 

of this came from and the videos. And the issue is, equivalent facilitation 

is essentially available for anybody under any circumstances. So my guess is, 

and I'm not the legal expert, but my guess is, equivalent facilitation on this 

is open, even if it's not —— even if it's sort of "contrary" to the statute.

 But that's a interpretation that FRA will have to make. And if Linda's 

inclined to think that that's possible, that's probably doable. It's FRA's 

regulation, they're DOT's regulation, and it can interpret it any way they want. 

So I suspect that will be available to people.

»» Okay, I just wanted to clarify that going forward. Because that was a 

concern. I did not know how —— if it being statutory, if it eliminated that 

capability, and I think what we're up against is, when the ADA was originally 

crafted, we were running no permanently coupled trains with the possible exempt 

of our turbo liners up in New York State. And will was no —— even the thinking 

of the day was that we probably wouldn't run fixed train sets because of the 

maintenance issues. You take a whole train out instead of just a car. 

Obviously that has changed a lot. And as we're going forward, not just Amtrak, 
but us as a nation, hoping to expand rail, looking at the European builder, 

that's a very common thing for them to do, to try to maximize revenue seating 

again. So any way, we'll have to see how that goes along. But I did want the 

make that point.

 Dennis: Right. And I'm hoping that —— and I think that FRA's inclined 

to move forward on this. So I want to make sure again that I caught all of 

the stuff that we discussed. So does anybody have questions about either the 

green or —— let's see, I don't think there's anymore green in those two —— oh, 

one thing I'll tell you. I put the figure in there, which is the —— comes from 

the via rail design that Uwe sent. And it originally had two drawings that 

showed one, the seating —— I mean the washroom and the other. And he put them 

both together into a single drawing, which was great and then when I tried to 

copy it into this document, it pulled them apart again. So, ——

»» I will send you a new version of that. You know, these things happen 

sometimes when you transfer from one system to another. I'll send you the one 

that has both together.

 Dennis: Okay. Good. So apologize for that. It's kind of weird.

»» Blair: I have two points to make. And one is around the by—level lounge 

car —— the bi—level lounge car. Right now we're assuming that we're going to 

have the vertical capability. But in the event that we don't, or even if we 

do, we have a destination about seating space in a single level. But I don't 
think we have anything to that level of detail for the bi—level.

 Dennis: Yeah.

»» Right now the way everything works is, the dining space is in the bi—level 

lounge in the lower level. Whether it's in the upper level or the lower level, 

I would think you would want a similar level of —— a similar degree of access, 

as far as seating space in both single and bi—level cars.

 Dennis: Okay. I have the scoping provision for the lounge car says where 

vertical access is provided. So that you don't have —— this particular piece, 

that's up to your committee to decide whether that's going to be a requirement. 

So I want to make sure that we have accessible seating in —— it says where 

vertical access provided accessible seating spacers shall also be provide on 

the upper level.

»» Okay, but from a quantity standpoint, the thinking has always been that you 

have —— whether you have vertical access or not, the lounge car box a place 

where you can have table space away from your regular accommodation, whether 

it's a coach or a sleeper. And right now, I mean, the cars that we built with 

Bombardier in the early 90's had two space, we just built them that way to park 

wheelchairs, or transfer.

 So, just it would seem to be to avoid any confusion that it might be worth 

throwing that in there like we have on the single—level. Just to improve the 
definition. That's my recommendation for what it's worth. The other thing 

is, on the Via Sleeper, the sink, the hand wash sink, I think I mentioned this 

the last time. I don't know, I sort of woke up in a cold sweat one night thinking 

about this sink. ...Laughter...

That's pretty sad when that's what you think about is sinks. One of the things 

that we ran into with the single—level car, we sort of traditionally had sinks 

that you could —— that you could get to, but they didn't necessarily meet the 

architectural requirements for rolling under. You could get at them from the 

side. You know, but you couldn't do a head—on sink condition. And that was 

pointed out as being a flaw based on the letter that was issued by DOT, I think 

in 2012. And so we actually are in the midst of modifying those cars, as a 

result of that, even before they are released. So that's something that I think 

it would be nice to have some clarification on.

 Just because it would make —— if you took the Via Rail as a starting point 

right away, trying to have a sink that you would have a straight—on access to, 

it could be problematic. So, don't want to get into a design process here on 

the call, but, it might be —— it would seem appropriate to put that in, at least 

to get some kind of clarification for the future.

 Dennis: Right. That's always been a problem with the head—on, knee and 

toe clearance under a lab. Because I've never seen a situation where you 

actually —— well, the old Amtrak's sort of had sort of —— but you still had 
to approach it from the side. And one of the problems with rail cars is, unlike 

buildings you don't have a wide wall to sort of run pipes and stuff down. So 

I think that's worth mentioning, though, that wherever we can, we want to try 

to get a knee and toe clearance under the lab. I'm just not convinced that 

it's feasible in all the cases. But we'll let the designers worry about 

that. But I think it's worth noting, at least. That we want to the that if 

we can.

 Uwe [Rutenberg]: You know, I think I agree with Blair. Ideally, and what 

you said, Dennis as well, ideally you would have enough knee space underneath 

so that you can approach the laboratory front—on. But as you say, sometimes, 

if you have limitations, as we had here, so that you can only have a partial 

clearance and you can approach it more or less from four to five degrees, but

certainly not from the front and reach to the sink there.

 But yeah, I agree. Ideally it should be made in such a way that you would 

have the clearance under the sink so that you can approach it face—to—face there.

 Dennis: Blair, my recollection is that there were some older Amtrak cars 

that actually had a fold down lab, is that correct in.

 Blair: That's correct. The AmFleet car original, as you say, 

accessible/non—accessible restroom had a fold—down lab, and the sleepers, the 

roomettes and the sleepers all had fold down labs as well. In one the early 
attempts to make an accessible sleeper used an old car, and a converted one 

of those roomettes, it kept the fold—down lab. So, you know, that sort of 

creativity could certainly work. Obviously if it's a fold down lab, then it 

has to meet other requirements so that you can actually manipulate it safely. 

You know, the force requirements and those sorts of things. So just —— I just 

think it's worth, since it's come up already, I think it's worth mentioning 

somehow. And maybe —— I don't know how we do it, or what the proper wording 

would be, but somewhere in there, I think you need to have it at a minimum there 

needs to be a technical explanation and a diagram for how the sink is accessible, 

even if it's not accessible in the perfect architectural sense. But it's within 

reach range, and things like that.

 Dennis: Okay, I'll add a note to that effect, if I —— and we'll look at 

that next time as we go through this.

 Uwe: I have another comment on the sleeper compartment there. We had 

a lady traveling from Toronto to Vancouver the other day on our new sleeper 

train there, the one that you saw here in the drawing. And one thing that she 

mentioned, and I haven't come across this, maybe somebody else has. She said, 

when she is using the lower bed, which is the one for the disabled person, she 

would like to see something on the side on the open side that prevents her from 

rolling out or falling down. And I don't know if that's a design issue, or 

somebody else has come across this. Just mentioning as, you know, a comment 
that came up. Also on page 2, I think you put in green there, Dennis, the call 

button. You have that page there?

 Dennis: Let's see...

 Uwe: It's under your drawing there on page 2. It's the last bullet in 

bold, I think it's in green. It says "call button that will have audible and 

visual indication."

 Dennis: We haven't gone through that piece yet that's in the controls 

and mechanisms part.

»» She mentioned that when she was in the sleeper as a very important part. 

I just want to reinforce that. Because when they call, they have no feed back 

if the call will be answered or not. And unfortunately, we didn't have in our 

control anything like a light, or an audible signal that said, you know, your 

call has gone through, wait until someone calls. Like you on the airplane, 

you call the flight attendant, the light goes on. You have a sound, they come 

and have to turn it off. So there's a reaction there to this. And I think 

the same would happen here as well. So yes, I think it's a very important point.

»» Yeah.

 Dennis: Let's finish this fist part, then I want to get to the controls 

and operating mechanisms piece.

 Blair: I was going to make a comment about the attendant call, but I'll 
wait.

 Dennis: Okay. Anything on the main body that I missed? Add some 

notes —— I'm going the add some notes about under—sink clearance and so forth. 

When I pulled up —— and I'll send the document to Paul that has the statutory 

language, I only looked at the pieces that talked about inner city and commuter 

rail. I vaguely recall that the statute also talks about equivalent 

facilitation, but I'm not positive. That would be worth look for. And I'll 

see if I can find out whether that's there or not. Because that would help. 

If the statute references it, then it seems that it would be applicable to 

essentially doing a different design than the statute called for. But we'll 

get to that later. Okay, let's go to controls and operating mechanisms here. 

That's the actual —— the first document right under the agenda. And I picked 

this for the most part from a couple of sources. Actually I pulled part of 

it from the proposed bus reversion. I pulled part of it from the ADA 

accessibility standards for facilities. And I added that provision that Uwe 

mentioned about the call button is actually a provision that's in the ADA 

standards for elevators. The elevator call button in an elevator has to have 

some means by which you, when you push the button, you get a feedback, which 

is either —— both audible and visual. And then when it's responded to on the 

other end, there's some feedback that tells you it's responded.

 Some elevator panels actually have a lighted sign that lights up that says 
"help is on the way." In some of the elevators here in metro, there's a button 

that you push for the call button, and it lights up, beeped and answered, when 

it's answered it go, beep, beep, beep, beep. Or there's actually an audible 

sound where the speaker says can I help you or something. I got that comment 

in part from a —— some comments to the controls and operating mechanisms that 

was put —— sent in by somebody who was responding and sent it to Melissa, I 

believe. And so I added that in there. But the scoping provision is basically 

to make sure that all of the operable parts —— and I took the definition of 

operable part out of the ADA/ABA facilities section, which essentially says, 

everything that you use to manipulate turn on, turn off, plug into, whatever, 

is an operable part. Then it talks about all of the things where you need to 

have them near the dining compartment, the seating locations, transfer seating, 

inner city rail, call button to some trained personnel shall be provided at 

well chair transfer seatings, within sleeping come partible and restrooms. All 

lights and Hvac that will meet the requirements. The upper lights, all the 

lights you need a upper set of controls for the lower bunks so you can turn 

it on and off without being in the bunk. We have a provision that says you 

can have duplicate or redundant controls.

 The heights of the controls, there's a drawing that shows it's actually 

for the bus situation, which sets the height at, between 24 and 48 inches. Ed 

Steinfeld isn't on the phone, I think. But we had a different provision in 
the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Facilities. I think 15 inches was the 

lowest. I don't know what the latest version is. But the numbers, the 24 the 

48 were sent to me by a commenter who said that that came from Ed Steinfeld's 

research. So, one of the questions in the comment I got in the mail was, was 

that going to be the right range. And I think the answer is, yes. The newest 

research shows that.

 We also have a distance reach of 10 inches, max. I put in the provision 

about the controls being 12 inches minimum from a inside corner so that you 

don't have to push into a corner. Redundant controls are permitted. And then 

it sets force requirements, power door buttons have to be two inches across. 

Controls meet Section 508, that has to do with tactile and a variety of other 

things that are in the 508 Standards. And then the last provision that I added, 

after this comment I got was the call button shall have audible and visual 

indication that the call has been received or responded to.

 So that is the extent of, you know, that's all the controls and operating 

mechanisms. Do people have comments at any of that?

»» This is Ken. I sometimes get mixed up, you know, which subcommittees have 

which jurisdiction. But I think we had a discussion on, like rapid rail and 

maybe lightrail as well, when we were having the discussion about 32—inch wide 

clear space. One of the alternatives I think that was in the proposal, I think 

someone road was to have a call —— an intercom call thing, so that if you were 
stuck because of a broken door on a rapid rail or transit car, you know, you'd 

have a means to contact the operator to say, hey, stop the train, you know, 

this door's not working, I can't get out, don't leave.

 And so, just —— again, if we use the control stuff around the specific 

dimensions, I think that this is something that would be cross referenced.

 Dennis: Right. The way Regs are usually written is, —— and the board 

will figure out how to put this together —— you have a scoping provision that 

says, you know, in a car, where the seating space is, you'll have a call button, 

it meets the requirements of —— then you reference the section. So you 

transform so you sort of put everything all together in one little place.

»» Yeah. And I would say, —— this is Chris. I would say for —— I think it's 

just important that you guys indicate your overall intent, and not necessarily 

worry about the exact specificity of every little detail.

»» But I do think it's worth, at least in a note, mentioning that this is going 

to call —— a call button is not just like the call button at your seat in an 

plane that calls the attendant. If in this case the call button is for a 

emergency situation.

 Chris: That's fine.

 Dennis: Right. Anybody else have comments?

»» Yeah, Dennis, this is Blair. Is it appropriate to talk about the attendant 
call system?

 Dennis: Sure.

 Blair: Just to give a quick overview of the way our system works now, 

to think about. In rooms that are not designated "accessible," the call button 

is actually a pull to call. And the reason for that is to help redeuce accident 

call calls or, kids fiddling with it. But in the accessible rooms, or in 

restrooms where you would have a button close to the floor, something in case 

you fell. Those are all push—button. And what happens in the case of a 

sleeper, you push the button and it typically will light and chime to let you 

know that you have activated it. As long as it's lit, it's activating the 

system.

 In the attendant's room, there's a annunciator panel that lights up with 

exactly where the room is. There's a tone and a light that comes onto let them 

know that someone needs assistance. Outside the room by the —— on the ceiling, 

there's a light outside the door and a indicator for the room number, and a 

indicator that the call button has been pressed. With the idea being that if 

the attendant is not in their room, where the annunciater panel is, that they 

or a conductor or someone else that's maybe busy in the car will see that there 

has been a call made for whatever the purpose is and can respond.

 So it does have one —— it gives the user feedback, and also has audible 

and visual indicators in two places for the train crew. I'd like to think that 
somewhere in the future that we're eventually able to, you know, have some 

wireless device that's on the railroad employee so no matter where they go that, 

you know, they will get an annunciate —— annunciation that someone needs 

assistance. Because in some cases they have two—car to take care of not just 

one. They could be busy in another car, and someone would have had a situation 

occur in their adjacent car. So hopefully that —— adjacent car. Hopefully 

that will improve going forward. It's pretty good going now. But we tend to 

think that everybody need to have the appropriate feedback. But there's always 

that risk that someone calls and just because the attendant is away from that 

area that they may miss it for an unfortunate period of time.

 Dennis: Right. We're not going to get into the operational issue, but 

I think one of the issues was, not knowing whether somebody's actually seen 

the light and coming. And so, do you push the button again, or do you do things 

like that? That's part of the reason why in the elevator there's a requirement 

that you get a response back. But you're right. If nobody's around the 

respond, you won't get it. I know that —— as I recall, when the ice train was 

here, Amtrak was looking at it from Germany, that one of the —— somebody said 

that —— this was years ago, when there were such things; that the conductors 

wore pager, and that the call button responded —— alerted them on the pager. 

We don't have page errs anymore. But virtually everybody's got a cell phone 

or something, and I'm sure you could send a signal to tell you where it was 
coming from.

 Blair: I think we're on the verge. Because Amtrak is working on what 

they call OBIS it's on Board Information System that is a combination of wired 

and wireless to reach throughout the train. And I think that we're on the verge 

of breaking through what barriers are left to having those kinds of reliable 

communications between the passengers and the crew wherever they might be on 

the train.

 It could be, again, sort of blue sky thinking, that if the attendants are 

given time off, rest period, they can transfer that responsibility to another 

attendant, which often they'll do. You know, one will say, it's my mealtime, 

will you watch my time, that's what they do. They relieve one another. So 

I think we're at the real edge of, you know, knocking through the last 

technological barrier to having that kind of seemless communication.

 Dennis: Okay. Anybody else? Oh, let me mention one thing about ——

again, the comment of the person who said that we should —— we needed to have 

this confirmation audible, whatever... mentioned restroom buttons as opposed 

to flush buttons. And I don't mean flush the toilet. Some people might have 

trouble, you know, pushing a button that's essentially the top of the button 

is flush with the housing around it, which is where lots of buttons are. That 

you needed a button that extends above the field. And I see a couple of 

questions about that. I'm not sure how to deal with that. Because it is true 
that some people might have difficulty pushing a button that's in, flush with 

the surrounding. On the other hand, you don't want to have buttons that are 

easily pushed accidentally. So somebody rolling over in bed flips a button. 

Or somebody who's decided that they want to flush the toilet in the restroom 

actually hits the call button. And I'm not quite sure how to deal with that 

issue.

 One of the issues for, I think, is the size of the button. If you have 

a small button in a housing that's the same as the button, that's going to be 

difficult for a lot of people and will take some fine motor control of a finger 

to push it. One the issues is you need to make sure those buttons are big. 

Whether they're flush or protruding above the housing, I'm not sure quite how 

to deal with that. Anybody got thoughts?

»» Dennis, this is Blair. We've pushed that one around a lot. I'll give you 

the good example is the Acela where we use the mushroom buttons. And they're 

pretty big. And when you push them, they light up with a image of the attendant 

so you know again that you have summoned somebody. But in our restrooms, we 

actually put in a handle like a old fashioned at home toilet handle so that 

the marketing folks of the day wanted it to be more like what people would expect 

at home versus you know, pushing a button on a airplane or train. The problem 

is that people have been conditioned long enough that when they're on a train 

or a airplane they expect to push a button. So not seeing a button but seeing 
a handle, they pushed the only button they could and called the attendant. That 

was universal, everybody was calling the attendant. It was going off in the 

food service car by the attendant because that's the only person who is always 

at one place.

 There's that. We eventually went in and put a big button that said "flush" 

and the problem went away. It's a huge weight. But in conditions where the 

space say around a toy let is fairly confined and you've got the need for the 

attendant call button and the flush button, and trying to keep them on the 

limited wall space that there is, but in close proximity, you run the risk 

sometimes of —— something may get activated that you don't want. Either you 

may flush the toilet, or call the attendant in inadvertently, but I think you 

made a very good point. Even if we have buttons that are recessed but the 

target, the size is appropriate for someone who doesn't have fine motor skills, 

it would be maybe the reasonable compromise, it would probably limit the 

opportunity to get snagged on the button or hit it by mistake. You still 

obviously could press against it, maybe and activate it unintentionally, but 

it would require a little bit more effort for a unintentional call or flush. 

So —— and if you have folks that are maybe a little bigger and occupy the space 

better than others, I think having some kind of recess, or flush to the surface 

could help as well.

»» Well, Dennis.
 Chris: This may be one item that the committee wants to flag as possible 

research. I'm not sure, the button size and the button projecting, and what 

type of button.

 Dennis: Actually Ed Steinfeld may have some information on this. But 

I'll add a note to that effect, that it needs somebody to look into it for 

appropriate —— we also talk about we also need appropriate placement. We want 

the call button to be close to the toilet, but you don't want it to be on the 

side that you —— if you're not on the toilet, but you're in your chair that 

you can't reach. I also noticed that —— I just realized that the control, the 

flush control for the toilet, I don't say it needs to be on the open side. We 

want to make sure of that. Because we see that in buildings where they put 

the flush lever on the opposite side, and so when you're in your chair beside 

the —— you can't reach the control to flush. So we need to make that in terms 

of the location. It seems to me I've seen —— I don't know whether this is Acella 

or not, but it seem to me I saw some restroom that actually had two call buttons, 

one further away so that you could hit it without —— and in fact, one of them ——

I don't know where I saw it. One of them was low. So if you actually say fell 

on the floor you could reach it. I don't know whether it's imagining things.

»» No, no, Dennis yourself right. I actually saw it in Europe on a train, I 

think it was in Sweden. They had one call button reachable from the seated 

position on the toilet, and then one on a lower, probably about eight inches 
from the floor. The idea being what you just mentioned, that if somebody is, 

you know, falling off the toilet or on the floor they can still reach that call 

button. So yes, they had two in the washroom.

»» I'm thinking of adding that as a note. I'm not sure we want to prescribe 

it at this point. But I think it's worth looking into. Blair?

 Blair: Yes, Dennis this is Blair. Yes, we do that in accessible spaces. 

And we go at it from the stand point of if you fell from wherever you intended 

to be that you would have the possibility of reaching a call button from the 

floor without having to reach very high. I think we keep it in the 12 inch 

range or 10—inch range, because we didn't want to make it in a range where you 

bump into it, or the footplate of the wheelchair or tear it off the wall. But 

it's that idea of I've fallen and I can't get it. And you can reach it.

 And in some cases like the bedrooms, the newer rooms, it's not just ——

you know, one at a regular level and one near the floor, it's in multiple places 

at those levels. Because obviously if it's on one side of the room and you're 

on the other side of the room, it's useless to you, so we've tried to add those.

 Dennis: Okay. So I think —— that would have to —— I'll have to write 

that as an exception to the 24—inch minimum, by basically saying, you can have 

a additional button that are below, as long as one of them is in that reach 

range. So I think that's probably an appropriate way to say that.
»» Yep. And this is Blair again. For even things like flush controls, where 

it may just make a lot more sense to have flush buttons you know in a come of 

places, so depending on the person, the specific person's ability, you know, 

they can reach the button. You know, if you transfer back and suddenly you 

realize, oh, the flush button is over there, but I'm right here, you know, maybe 

having —— I would add something that says, that suggestions, you know, multiple 

button, if appropriate to the design, you know, to maximize flexibility for 

the users.

 Dennis: Okay.

 Blair: I did want to bring up one point, Dennis, on —— I know you like 

to pick at Amtrak because it's ——

 ...Laughter...

—— Amtrak and inner city are... inextricably connected and when the ADA was 

written, that was the inner city railroad for the country. And since that time 

we've seen efforts by other companies to have sort of rail crew situations where 

they may apply car to the back of an Amtrak train or they may run their own 

train, but in most cases, what we find is from the operating standpoint, a lot 

of the freight railroads will only deal with Amtrak and Amtrak crews to operate 

over their railroad. That's not the case in some situations like VRE which 

is a commuter line, where they have contracts with other operators.
 But a lot of the sort of you know, smaller operations, Amtrak is the 

operator from a railroad standpoint, even if they're not the overall company 

involved. So the tricky part is, as I understand the statutes that put the 

teeth into the ADA, it is an issue of public funding. And it becomes splitting 

hairs, but I don't know if —— I'll use the example of the American Orient Express 

I don't know what their accessibility situation was. I'm sure they had some 

sort of accessibility. But I don't know what they used as guidelines because 

they were, you know, technically a private company, even though their trains 

were pulled by Amtrak for a fee, and you know, their crews were paid for. It 

would take some careful accounting to make sure that, all of that was 100% 

funded, and therefore not subsidize by public funds.

 What do you do with those kinds of situations? Because people are —— they 

are a common carrier at that point. And it seems that the real drive should 

be for a common carrier that's in the passenger business versus just Amtrak. 

I say that not just to share the burden, but to make sure that we do what we're 

supposed to do, and have you know, appropriate accessibility regardless of who 

the provider is.

 Dennis: Right. The statute does talk about private entity, you know, 

Alaska Railway I guess is a private, and there are state—run railroads and so 

forth. And some of these proposed high—speed trains will be privately operated 

and privately funded. They're still covered by the ADA, it's just that the ——
they're not as explicit as what's required. They are required to comply with 

ADA. They are still required to meet the general accessible to and usable by 

people with disabilities. And so, it doesn't necessarily specify you shall 

follow this particular design. When we were writing the original guidelines, 

like things for high speed rail, we assumed that the cars would look pretty 

much like Amtrak cars. And so we said, so follow the Amtrak car design 

standards.

 Well that turns out not to be that good a deal these days. But we didn't 

have any examples to turn to. And I think some of this is probably going to 

be not so much a change in the statute. I don't think the statute needs to 

be changed so much as FRA needs to give some interpretations. But I think it's 

pretty clear that those private railroads are covered by the ADA. It's just 

that they're not as explicit about specifically whether you have to have a 

restroom in a dining car, or those kind of things. That's where the real 

difference comes from.

 I'm going to send the document that I pulled off the web and highlighted 

to Paul. And he can send it out to the rest of you. And you can see, I've 

marked in yellow highlighted a number of the provision, and you can see where 

the statutory requirements come from. I did that awhile back, and I just didn't 

think to put it on this, or we could have had it available to look at.

 Chris: Yes, I was just with Calvin and there were issues about private 
issues, IE like some other railroads. Basically FRA is looking at those issues, 

it all goes to DOJ, because they are viewed as title three and not Title II.

 Dennis: Okay. Anything else about controls and operating mechanisms and 

I'll add some notations and stuff on what we discussed. And then if not, we 

can go onto the handrails, which is —— handrail, grab bars is pretty straight 

forward. I pulled it pretty much directly from the ADA, ABA, Accessibility 

Standards for Buildings and Facilities. And it simply talks about rounded 

edges. It doesn't have to be circular. There are circular cross section grab 

bar, and it tells you what the minimum and maximum is. What we don't have ——

I don't think I put it in here —— any way the non—circular, there's some drawings 

about overall and roughly scare. There's a requirement for clearance between 

the wall and the grab bar. There's a structural strength requirement. One 

thing I didn't add in the restroom section we say basically follow the 

requirements from the building and facilities side. But I don't have anything 

that says the height. I believe the height is 33 to 36 inches. And we don't 

have —— I haven't specified a length for the grab bars in the restroom. And 

that's a separate issue. Let's look at the issue about the technical 

requirements for the grab bars and handholds themselves. Anyone have any 

questions about those provisions?

 Chris: I would just encourage you all to think about where you want to 

specify the location. And that really is focused on am track —— and not really 
focus on Amtrak, but focus on every lightrail and commuter rail and having you 

really concentrate on where these items will go overall.

 Dennis: Yeah, I wasn't —— I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about 

that in the circulation subcommittee about things like vertical Stantions in 

the middle of the walkways and between door, we had a very long discussion on 

that and that subcommittee. This provision here is just the technical 

provision of what a grab bar looks like, not so much about where they are located. 

And so, I figured that since these things are in rooms and spaces that I might 

as well put this requirement here. The scoping requirement about where you 

need them and how they meet that will be figured out in some other committees 

with the exception of the restroom. We probably need to make a provision about 

where those grab bars are. The grab bars around the toilet in a building are 

typically on the side, and in the back. In the back, it has been said that 

it doesn't meet —— isn't very useful ——Laughter...

—— I can tell you a story about where it came from. But it basically came 

from the idea somebody who one the people working on one of the original grab 

bar was could we have a fold down grab bar on the other side, a lot of questions 

about the struck strength. It was Ed who said why don't we put one on the barks 

and the guy said okay. And that was where it came from. My recollection from 

talking to people who have been doing this research is that back grab bar isn't 

very useful. It maybe useful in the train where everything is moving. People 
have specific ideas about that particular issue and where they —— I mean, they 

think —— I think that there should be a lot more grab bars in a train than there 

need to be in a building, because it's moving, and so I don't necessarily want 

to get to the design of where to put vertical grab bars, and horizontal grab 

bars except around the water closet. Because I've seen lots of different 

design, some of which are good and some of which are bad. But my opinion is, 

the more grab bars is better in the moving train. Questions? Anybody got a 

comment?

»» Blair: I mean we have been adding grab bar, you know, beyond what was 

required. And it's been more around the —— it's been more adding vertical grab 

bars that come down within range, but you know, sort of directed at helping 

folks to steady themselves or to have within more thing to grab as they're 

transferring or moving about within in the room. I agree with you, I think 

it makes a lot of sense —— I know when we did the Acela, I told you this story 

before, we were working with the design consultant who claimed to be the great 

experts on accessibility. But they were just over 50 miles from home, so they 

were experts by proclamation. But any way, we said okay, where should we put 

the railings? And they were trying to read the law, you know, or the rules 

and sort of minimize it. And I said well, but we've got multiple areas where 

it makes sense. We'll just put it —— they wouldn't give me a decision. And 

we needed to build the mock—up. So I said well, put the railing around the 
front of the sink, and down the little short wall, and then a vertical one that 

goes up the wall and one behind the water closet all this stuff. When gets 

here for review, we'll just eliminate the ones that aren't needed. Of course 

everyone loved them all, we kept them all, to the Chagrin of the designers. 

I think the Acela restroom railings blend in perfectly. Everyone thought Wow, 

you've got railings everywhere you could possibly need them. Nothing was 

deleted.

 And I think that was a real watershed moment for us to understand, the 

more you put in there, you put them this carefully, the broader range of folks 

you're going to assist regardless of their particular situation.

 Chris: Blare, I can't tell you how often that sink railing has saved me 

from going on the floor. As well as the vertical grab bar.

 Blair: Well, good we got something right for a change.

 Dennis: Yeah, I think we can't really get too much into the weeds of trying 

to prescribe better designs and whatever. I know that you can also over do 

it. When I came to Washington many years ago, I stopped at a motel in Breeze 

way up in Pennsylvania, it said it was a holiday in that said it was accessible. 

The both room looked like a jungle Gym it had a grab bar that came out of the 

wall, hooked to the floor, it was impossible to get between it and the sink 

counter to get to the toilet. So you can over do it.

 ...Laughter...
 Blair: You to remember, I often tell people, the road to hell is paved 

with good intentions.

 ...Laughter...

 Dennis: Okay, I don't hear any problems with the technical thing about 

what grab bars are, and their strength and whatnot. And then we've got some 

notes to add about controls, about single—level lounge cars, bi—level lounge 

cars. And I think we maybe done. Is that —— anybody got any additional things?

 Blair: I'll take as an assignment, because there seems to be a lot of ——

there is a lot of overlap here based on Chris's point about handrails in other 

modes. Let me see if I can put some kind of performance criteria against 

handrails that would you know, may have a good cross—over between the rooms 

and spaces and circulation. And we'll add that in on the circulation side and 

capture it.

 Chris: That would be good, Blair. One thing I realize —— (Low Audio) 

where do the grab bars, do your grab bars only appear in the "accessible 

rooms?" Or do they appear in all the sleeper rooms? So, it maybe worthwhile 

to ponder what the next generation sleepers need to look like. Not what they 

currently look like today, but in the future, what would it look like.

 Blair: Chris, that's a very good point. And we are faced with an aging 
demographic. And as —— with the babe boomer, as a result, I don't know anyone, 

anyone regardless of their situation that doesn't benefit from, you know, grab 

bars and hand rails. I would, Chris, if you have a moment, if you have some 

thoughts about some of the other modes from a circulation standpoint, or any 

information that will help me come up with some wording, that would be awesome.

 I'm thinking about you know, a transit car and what happens between the 

door and the accessible space, and then you know, projecting into the 

non—accessible, the ambulatory space, and how do we make sure that there's 

enough there for everybody. So if you have any thoughts that way, or any 

specific examples that I could maybe write around, that would be great.

 Dennis: I would strongly recommend that you look at the handrail 

configuration in the metro liner —— Metro 6,000 cars, —— we don't know what 

the 7,000 looks like. But they've done, I think a great job of doing all the 

things of having handrails right inside the door that you can get to, but that 

go around the wall in such a way that somebody, as opposed to having the Stantion 

in the center that Martin wanted to do —— the argument was that some people 

needed to get in and out of the car, some people other than wheelchair user, 

but that's true. But the design of the hand rails that go along the wall inside 

the 6,000 Metro cars do a good job of giving people a good place to grab onto 

and to get out of the doorway it's, as opposed to standing with their backs 

against the wind screen and essentially blocking the door. So, I think one 
of the issues —— I don't think we can sit down and do a design standard, a 

performance standard would be good. But we also don't want to just try to 

redesign the grab rail configuration. I think what might be useful in the 

report is to have a lot of drawings or photographs of configurations that we 

think the do a pretty good job.

 Chris: This is again where I would reiterate Paul and Melissa, you guys 

are our eyes and ears as much as we can get photos and blueprints of cars is 

that much more helpful for us as we get the rubric for FRA and everybody else. 

If you have photos and diagrams captioned drawings, we need those.

 Paul: If you do send us drawings or photos, make sure they're not 

copyrighted. If they are, we need copy right permissions to use them.

»» If I take a photograph on my cell phone and send it to you, that's okay, 

right?

 Paul: That's okay.

»» This is Ken, I'm done that for Dennis, on some of the restaurant picture, 

examples of some restaurants.

 Paul: Just to clarify, you know, when somebody sends us a photo the first 

question is, what do we do with it? Can we put it on the web this who owns 

it? So I get a photo from Dennis, he said I took this photo, I know it's Dennis's 

photo. But if I get a bunch photos, I don't know if someone cut and paste it 

off the internet or something, et cetera.
 Chris: Yes, how does that work for public entities, we can use it without 

a —— (Low Audio) is it public so from a copyright standpoint, it's available 

to the public.

 Dennis: I think if it's already on the web, it's public automatically.

»» Not necessarily. Paul: Not necessarily, no. I would say, get in the 

habit —— because we're being more and more held to this. When you send us 

something for use, you to answer the question, who owns it, and do we have 

permission to use it? So just because it's on the web doesn't mean that we 

have permission to use it and place it on our website or put it in our final

report, et cetera. So, —— think that through. Uwe was a good example. We 

went back and forth, who owns this? What sort of statement do we need on this 

document to be able to use the drawings of the Canadian rail vehicles?

 Dennis: Okay, aside from Blair's assignment, who else want to take on 

an assignment? I guess we should go for next step, first. What do we need 

to do? What is the next level that we need to proceed on? We're not going 

to have a meeting in December. So this is January. What more do we need to 

deal with? We've dealt with restrooms, sleepers, lounges, dining cars, et 

cetera. What do we have left, folks? Are we done?

 Chris: We still have —— (Low Audio) club cars, you have outdoor/in 

door —— I don't know what we call those cars up in Alaska.
»» Ken: Chris happens to be with me in the office.

 Dennis: Can you speak up a little.

 Ken: I think that some of this —— there are definitional issues around 

is a club car different than a lounge car? But you know, cars that —— and we 

may have —— there will be some drafting stuff, but clearly places where you 

eat, places where you have sort of a lounge or sitting, eating, that's not sort 

of rows of seats, so separate from a regular passenger car, and then the sort 

of observational car issues, whether internal or external, you know, it does 

need to be a little bit of definition and some degree of standards so that you 

know, those kinds of spaces are addressed. And you know, it does get a little 

complicated about you know, is a dome car, a lounge car, or... I don't know, 

different railroads use different terms, but I think from a regulatory 

perspective, you know, passenger cars with just sitting rows, there's sort of 

the mixed—use loungish cars that have maybe some tables in circle, or small 

tables and couches, and other sorts of stuff. And then there's cars that are 

sort of setup for observation, and they couldn't be dome cars, or they could 

be some of the things like in Alaska that have sort of, I think just open spaces. 

I've never been in one, so I've only seen the external. But it's some kind 

of observation area that may or may not have seating, and probably will need, 

you know to stay an accessible route. And probably some degree of hand rails 

and clear paths issues.
 Dennis: I think those are probably easiest covered by saying things like, 

if you have table seating, you to have accessible table seating space. If you 

have any kind of seating at all, —— well, even if it's a standing—only area, 

as long as you have space for a wheel chair, you're covered. And anything open 

to the public passengers as opposed to crew members has to meet requirements, 

has to be an accessible route, and there has to be space for wheelchairs if 

there's seats it has to be transfer seat. And I think that covers all of them. 

I don't think we can necessarily define the nature of all of those things 

explicitly. Think we need to cover it with a general statement.

 Ken: Right that might do it.

 Chris. And I think you might want to give thought to defining a window 

height or a railing height so that people have proper views. Because it's 

really conceivable that you could have a space that you could not actually look 

out.

 Dennis: Right.

 I think that's in Blair's purview. But at this point, I know that in some 

of the older Amtrak car, when they were trying to meet the, you know, number 

of spaces per number of cars and so forth, there were some spaces for wheelchairs 

right next to, or right behind the lab, which did not have a window, and everybody 

else had a window. And so, my answer is that, you know, that seat has to have 

the amenities that you would normally have for any other seat in the car. So 
I think that's pretty much again decided at this point in terms of design is 

you don't put wheelchair spaces against blank walls. And we probably need to 

say something to that effect somewhere.

»» Right.

 Chris: Right. I think you want to look at that window Cil height issue.

 Dennis: I can barely hear you.

 Chris: I think you want to think about defining the window sill height, 

and ensuring that you can look out from a observatory area, or from a seated 

area of from a sitting position. Would you ——

 Dennis: ADA's nondiscrimination statute, it seem to me that is the answer 

is, whatever anybody else get to see you get to see.

 Blair: I think maybe this will help. We're in the throws of resolving 

a problem I wasn't even aware of on some of our western cars. The way we have 

tried to go at accessible spaces and windows is to look at it as —— because 

you know, the accessible spaces usually end up by default being at the end of 

the car. So, you create the potential because of the way the car is built of 

it just being structurally convenient to not have a window, and that's 

ridiculous. But it happens, and unfortunately people don't think about it 

until it too late.

 What we try to do now is to look at it from the standpoint of if you take 
the —— you're going to have some seats that are going to be in corners with 

no windows. But whatever the most typical condition is within the car, that 

you have a choice, if you're ambulatory you have a choice of trying to go and 

get one of these other seats. That definition of the typical seat with the 

window condition should be what is provided in the accessible space as a minimum. 

And then the thinking is, well, okay if you have some seats that are in the 

corner, and they're away from window, well, —— but those are not the accessible 

spaces. Because people who don't need accessible spaces have access and choice 

about where they sit. People that need the accessible spaces don't. And so 

the thinking is that, you know, you go at it that way.

 You take what is the most typical seating condition and that becomes the 

definition for the window access for the accessible space. And it might be 

good to have some relation between the defined accessible footprint and the 

center line of the window. Because obviously depending on how you go into a 

car, the window may not —— maybe centered or almost centered on that space, 

but that could leave you sitting behind a wall, and looking sort of you know, 

at a angle out of the car. So I can write something up on that. I think it 

probably belongs in spaces more than circulation. And as logical as it seems, 

you know, we're looking at proposals for new vehicles and it's —— you know, 

the wheelchair space is in a corner, and it's a long ways from a window. You 

look at that and go, well, that won't work. But you know, it seems obvious 
once you've been up against it. But it obviously isn't to everyone that's in 

the business.

 Dennis: Okay, let me take a shot about trying to specify something about 

that. The issues with controls and operating hecks we said they mechanism we 

said they should be within six inches forward of the center line wheelchair 

space. Part of that is because we don't know which way you're going to be facing 

in that space. If I've got —— if I'm traveling with a friend who's sitting 

in the transfer, or just anybody who's sitting in that space, the chair that's 

right next to it, I probably want to face that person.

 On the other hand, I may want to ride, you know, facing forward or rearward, 

or whatever, and be in the other direction if I'm not with anybody. So we want 

to make sure that the —— which is another reason why you don't put securement 

devices in there —— is so that you get to sit whichever direction you want 

facing.

 So you don't want to have controls or windows or whatever in such a way 

that it essentially forces you to sit one way or the other if you want to see 

out the window or touch the buttons. Are we done?

»» I think we covered some good ground today.

 Chris: Okay.

»» Uwe: When do we have the next meeting, Dennis?
»» January 22 is the next subcommittee meeting.

»» Yes, January 22 you said? Okay.

»» That's correct.

 Dennis: And the full meeting is in February, right?

»» That's correct.

 Dennis: Then there's some other committee meetings between then. 

December there is a —— circulation I think meets ——

»» I think on the 8th.

 Uwe: Onboard circulation meets December 11th.

»» 11th. Okay.

 Dennis: All right. Thank you all.

»» Thank you, Dennis.

»» Thank you Dennis.

»» Thank you.

»» Okay.

»» Talk to you later.

»» All right, take care.

»» Bye, bye.

»» Operator, please