​​Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Crawford, and members of the Subcommittee. We appreciate this opportunity to share insights regarding issues relating to freight railroad safety.

I have a strong personal interest in rail safety. In the early 1950s, my grandfather was struck and killed in a railroad grade crossing crash. He was a volunteer firefighter on a duty call with a colleague when the collision occurred. Because of my family history, I have made rail safety – and grade crossing safety, specifically – a priority during my time on the Board.

Improving Rail Worker Safety is on our Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements.

Improving rail worker safety means making sure that roadway workers have the training, equipment, rest, and layers of protection they need while working on or around tracks. It means making sure that crews operating trains carrying hazardous materials have time to escape in case of an accident. It also means reducing the risks of derailments and collisions as trains are getting longer and heavier.

Although rail worker fatalities have declined overall in recent years, we continue to see recurring safety issues in our accident investigations that are 100 percent preventable.

Of particular concern is the continued reliance on Train Approach Warning for roadway workers.

Under FRA regulations, Train Approach Warning is a method of establishing on-track safety for workers using a lookout whose sole duty is to watch for approaching trains and equipment.

It is susceptible to human errors, such as underestimating the time needed for workers to clear tracks. We have long been concerned with the risks of using Train Approach Warning as the sole form of worker protection, primarily because it lacks redundancy. Trains travel at deceivingly high speeds, and without proper warning, workers may not have enough time to react. 

Based on our investigations, we have made recommendations to the FRA to ensure that lookouts have the tools necessary to warn work crews of approaching trains. Likewise, we have recommended that the FRA define when the risks associated with using Train Approach Warning are unacceptable and revise its regulations to prohibit it in those cases. Although dialogue is ongoing, FRA has yet to implement these recommendations.

In 2018, in Bowie, Maryland a young man – just twenty-one years old – lost his life in a preventable accident. He was standing in a work zone, on an active track, in the path of Amtrak Train 86, which was traveling at nearly 100 mph.

In this case, Amtrak’s reliance on Train Approach Warning resulted in failure to take advantage of the protections that could have been provided by PTC. In controlled track territory, the risk of roadway workers being struck by a train can be reduced by using working limits or speed restrictions, which would enable the PTC protections. We recommended that Amtrak and all Class I railroads eliminate the use of Train Approach Warning in controlled track territory during planned maintenance and inspection activities.

Mr. Chairman, fatigue decreases a person’s alertness and ability to work safely.

Currently, FRA hours-of-service regulations are limited to employees directly involved with the movement of a train. However, FRA regulations do not cover roadway workers, who are just as critical to ensure safe operations.

FRA has indicated it does not have the legal authority to extend these regulations. NTSB disagrees. Consequently, we encourage Congress to consider clarifying the agency’s authority.

We have also investigated accidents involving High-Hazard Flammable Trains, breached tank cars, and fires – placing crews at unnecessary risk by not reasonably separating them from combustibles.

In 2017, we recommended that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration evaluate the risks posed to train crews to determine the adequate separation distance between hazardous materials and occupied cars to ensure crews are protected during normal operations and accident conditions. FRA should revise its regulations to reflect those findings.

In the interim, we recommend that PHMSA require that all trains have a minimum of five buffer cars between any crew-occupied equipment and cars carrying hazardous materials.

The sequencing of cars in a train and controlling train movement continue to be areas of interest in our investigations, not only regarding the safe placement of hazardous materials, but also for reducing the risks of derailments and collisions through effectively managing in-train forces.

We have also investigated accidents in freight rail where use of available technology such as electronically controlled pneumatic brakes would have mitigated risks.

We welcome helpful measures included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which will help shed light on these concerns. Likewise, we are encouraged by legislation requiring FRA to collect more data on its accident & incident reports, including the number and length of cars as well as the size of the crew on involved trains. This additional data will help us better understand whether further safety recommendations are warranted.

Mr. Chairman, rail remains one of the safest means of transportation. Yet there will always be room for improvement. The safety issues we continue to see in our investigations are tragic because they are preventable. We at NTSB appreciate the work of this Committee and will continue to do our part to improve rail safety.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I am prepared to take your questions.

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