[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE STATE OF POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL IMPLEMENTATION IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
(114-23)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 24, 2015
__________
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
Vice Chair Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DUNCAN HUNTER, California RICK LARSEN, Washington
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BOB GIBBS, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
JEFF DENHAM, California JOHN GARAMENDI, California
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JANICE HAHN, California
TOM RICE, South Carolina RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania DINA TITUS, Nevada
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
ROB WOODALL, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
TODD ROKITA, Indiana CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
JOHN KATKO, New York JARED HUFFMAN, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JULIA BROWNLEY, California
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana
MIMI WALTERS, California
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia
CARLOS CURBELO, Florida
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
(ii)
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
JEFF DENHAM, California, Chairman
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida
SAM GRAVES, Missouri DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan JERROLD NADLER, New York
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas RICK LARSEN, Washington
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TOM RICE, South Carolina RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
TODD ROKITA, Indiana GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
JOHN KATKO, New York JANICE HAHN, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
CRESENT HARDY, Nevada Officio)
MIMI WALTERS, California
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex
Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
WITNESSES
Sarah Feinberg, Acting Administrator, Federal Railroad
Administration:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Charles Mathias, Associate Chief, Wireless Telecommunications
Bureau, U.S. Federal Communications Commission:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Frank Lonegro, Vice President of Service Design, CSX
Transportation, Inc.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement, including white paper from Association of
American Railroads entitled ``Positive Train Control
Implementation Challenges,'' June 22, 2015................. 56
Donald Orseno, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer,
Metra Commuter Railroad:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 95
Russell Kerwin, Deputy Project Manager of Positive Train Control,
Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink):
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 100
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Report, ``San Francisco/Silicon Valley Corridor Investment
Strategy for High-Speed Rail,'' June 2009, by San Francisco
County Transportation Authority, et al., submitted by Hon. Jeff
Denham, a Representative in Congress from the State of
California..................................................... 108
ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
Letter of June 23, 2015, from Eric Garcetti, mayor of the city of
Los Angeles, to Chairman Jeff Denham and Ranking Member Michael
E. Capuano, Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous
Materials...................................................... 136
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
THE STATE OF POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL IMPLEMENTATION IN THE UNITED STATES
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous
Materials,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Denham (Chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Denham. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good morning. Welcome to the Subcommittee on Railroads,
Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. Our hearing today will
focus on the implementation of PTC, Positive Train Control, in
the United States, one of the most complex and costly safety
mandates ever taken by the railroad industry.
Positive train control is a radio or GPS-based [Global
Positioning System-based] system designed to automatically
control trains to follow speed limits and avoid train-to-train
collisions. Following the deadly commuter train crash in
southern California, Congress mandated the installation of PTC
on lines where certain hazardous materials are carried and any
line on which passenger or commuter rail services operate.
The recent tragic Amtrak crash in Philadelphia has reminded
us that, while these accidents are rare, they can happen, and
PTC will make our rail network safer. This mandate was included
in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, and Congress set an
implementation deadline of December 31 of this year.
From the beginning, the PTC mandate was going to be a
daunting undertaking to consider. What completely implemented
PTC will require is 38,000 wayside interfaces, 18,000
locomotives to be upgraded, and 12,000 signals will need to be
replaced.
While similar systems exist in Europe and on some portions
of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, PTC has never been implemented
on such a scale and has never required such a high level of
interoperability. Since the 2008 mandate was enacted, freight,
passenger, and commuter railroads have spent the last 7 years
working to implement PTC. According to the Association of
American Railroads, freight rail has spent $5.7 billion to date
on PTC and is expected to spend a total of $9 billion to fully
implement it.
The American Public Transportation Association has
estimated that commuter and passenger railroads will have to
spend nearly $3.5 billion on PTC. In addition to the sheer cost
and complexities of the system, there have been many unexpected
delays. The process of approving PTC poles along railroad
right-of-way was delayed significantly when the Federal
Communications Commission mandated that each pole go through an
extensive review process.
The FCC eventually created a more streamlined process for
those approvals, and we will hear from them today about how it
is working. Commuter and passenger railroads have also
struggled to buy the necessary radio spectrum for PTC,
especially in our dense metropolitan areas.
Today we will discuss how long it will take to get PTC
implemented across the country and what it will take to meet
this current deadline. In closing, I look forward to hearing
from our witnesses regarding these issues.
I would now like to recognize Ranking Member Michael
Capuano from Massachusetts for any opening statement he may
have.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome the panel. I am looking forward to your
testimony and the discussion we have. I think the chairman has
said pretty much everything there is to say about PTC from our
end of it.
Honestly, this is long overdue, in my estimation. And,
honestly, I would like to find out--we all know where we are
today. Tell me how we get to where we want to implement as
quickly as we can because that is what America wants, that is
what I want. And if you think you need Federal assistance,
please say so. Be clear.
I say that because we have our own differences of opinion
in the House and the Senate as to whether we should be putting
funds up or not. And if you think we should, you should say so.
I would like to hear that.
With that, I yield back. And I look forward to the
testimony.
Mr. Denham. I now call on the full committee chairman, Mr.
Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Chairman Denham, for holding this
hearing today. I think it is important to start off by saying
that the number-one top priority of this committee and the
Department of Transportation is safety.
In general, rail safety trends have gone in the right
direction over the past years. However, the terrible Amtrak
incident in Philadelphia last month showed us that we should
always remain focused on our efforts to improve rail safety.
As Chairman Denham said--and I believe it is worth
repeating--Positive Train Control is one of the most ambitious,
complex, and costly safety enhancements the railroad industry
has ever undertaken.
I was the ranking member of the subcommittee in 2008 when
Congress enacted the PTC mandate. We knew the mandate would be
challenging, but we hoped that railroads would be able to meet
that deadline 7 years into the future. Unfortunately, we know
today that that will not be the case.
With a few exceptions, most railroads, including the
largest Class I freight railroads, will not meet December's
deadline. This has happened for a few reasons.
Technology has been more complicated especially to ensure
interoperability between the railroads. Spectrum has been
harder to acquire particularly for commuter railroads that
serve in densely populated metro areas. And, finally, the
Federal Communications Commission's approval process for new
telecommunication poles was not set up to handle the tens of
thousands of poles needed to deploy PTC.
So I am looking forward to hearing from you today, the
witnesses, where the PTC implementation stands, and your
testimony will help us to consider how we move forward to deal
with the mandate in an appropriate fashion.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Denham. And I will call on Mr. DeFazio for any opening
statement he may have.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Are you sure your microphone is working? I couldn't hear
you. Jeff doesn't need a microphone, the chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding the hearing.
We are going to focus on the extension of the deadline
today. It is clear that the Class I's aren't going to be able
to meet the deadline. Some passenger rail is not going to be
able to meet the deadline.
But this was not a knee-jerk reaction to Chatsworth, and
this has been something that has been a very, very long time in
the making.
It was 45 years since NTSB [National Transportation Safety
Board] first recommended the idea of Positive Train Control.
And they have had it on their most wanted list for many years.
It was temporarily removed after the passage of the legislation
in 2008, but it was put back on when it was clear that the
deadlines weren't going to be met.
Just to revisit why we did this, Chatsworth actually took
place right before the House and Senate had acted. And it was a
compilation of accidents over the years, including, in
particular, one in 2005 that was a release of chlorine gas.
Five thousand people were evacuated. Eight people died. Five
hundred fifty-four were injured.
And the NTSB at the time said they had never seen anything
like it, this was caused by human error--improper alignment of
a switch--and, had PTC been installed, it wouldn't have
happened. And then they went back over a litany; this again is,
at the time of passage: 145 accidents, 296 fatalities, and
6,700 injuries over the past 45 years since their first
recommendation would have been prevented with PTC. So we passed
it.
Chatsworth took place, actually, right before House
passage, which led the Senate to change its position. They
started out, I believe, with 2018 as the deadline, and they
were pushing, at the behest of the two California senators,
2014. We compromised on 2015 as something that could be
achievable. Unfortunately, we aren't going to meet that
deadline in many cases.
Congress was helping some of the passenger rail folks with
grants. The President has asked for $1 billion. We got one $50
million grant. But, since 2010, nothing has been allocated by
Congress.
Now, for freight, it is a heavy expense, but at least it is
a business expense. For nonprofit passenger rail, you know, it
is an expense which is hard to pass on to the customers, but
that is pretty much what they have to do, or the local
operating jurisdiction. So grants could be helpful, I believe,
and we hopefully will hear more about that today.
And yet, our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee--it
doesn't quite take the same view of these issues as we do--we
are a little more enlightened on this committee--actually cut
Amtrak's capital grants by $290 million the day after the
accident.
And among other things that those grants fund is Positive
Train Control in addition to other critical infrastructure,
which is likely to cause other accidents, derailments, bridge
collapse, tunnel collapse. The system is decrepit, needs an
incredible amount of investment. Very, very shortsighted.
So I have observed that we got a man to the moon after
President Kennedy issued the challenge. It only took 8 years,
and that was 1 year after the NTSB first asked for Positive
Train Control.
I know we can do it. We just need to hear today what
impediments remain and what can we do to expedite the
installation across all of the system in the critical
categories.
We defined toxic-by-inhalation routes included in addition
to the passenger and the other very heavily used routes.
So I look forward to the testimony. And, if necessary, I
would urge the committee to take further action if we hear
testimony today that says we need to take steps to get this
done.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio.
I would now like to welcome our panel of witnesses. First,
Ms. Sarah Feinberg, Acting Administrator of the Federal
Railroad Administration, FRA.
And I want to pay a special thanks. You have continued to
come before this committee. There have obviously been a number
of big issues that this committee is addressing, and you have
not wavered as far as coming before us and answering some very
difficult questions. So we thank you for being here again with
us this morning.
Also, Mr. Charles Mathias, Associate Chief, Wireless
Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission,
FCC; Mr. Frank Lonegro, vice president of service design, CSX
Transportation; Mr. Donald Orseno, executive director and chief
executive officer of Metra Commuter Railroad; and Russell
Kerwin, deputy project manager of Positive Train Control,
Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink).
I ask unanimous consent that our witnesses' full statements
be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.
Since your written testimony has been made part of the
record, the subcommittee would request that you keep your
statements limited to 5 minutes.
With that, Ms. Feinberg, you are recognized.
TESTIMONY OF SARAH FEINBERG, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION; CHARLES MATHIAS, ASSOCIATE CHIEF,
WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU, U.S. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS
COMMISSION; FRANK LONEGRO, VICE PRESIDENT OF SERVICE DESIGN,
CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC.; DONALD ORSENO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, METRA COMMUTER RAILROAD; AND RUSSELL
KERWIN, DEPUTY PROJECT MANAGER OF POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL,
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL RAIL AUTHORITY (METROLINK)
Ms. Feinberg. Thank you.
Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Capuano, Chairman Shuster,
Ranking Member DeFazio, and members of the subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the
implementation of Positive Train Control in the United States.
PTC technology is arguably the single most important
railroad safety development in more than a century. The
technology is not new, though. Elements of PTC have existed
since the early 20th century. In fact, regulators and safety
advocates have been calling on the rail industry to implement
some form of PTC for many decades, the NTSB, since 1969.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 required the
current functionality of Positive Train Control to be fully
implemented by December 31, 2015. PTC is required on Class I
railroad main lines where any poisonous or toxic-by-inhalation
hazardous materials are transported. It is also required on any
railroad's main line where regularly scheduled intercity or
commuter rail passenger service is conducted.
Following passage of the PTC mandate in 2008, railroads
submitted their PTC implementation plans in 2010. These plans
laid out a path forward that would allow each railroad to meet
the deadline.
As I have stated to this committee before, safety is the
Federal Railroad Administration's top priority. The rail system
is not as safe as it could be without the full implementation
of PTC.
A safe rail system requires the full implementation of
Positive Train Control, and that is why FRA will enforce the
December 31, 2015, deadline for implementation just as Congress
has mandated.
For several years, FRA has been sounding the alarm that
most railroads have not made sufficient progress in
implementing PTC. In the 7 years since passage of the PTC
mandate, FRA has dedicated significant resources and worked
closely with the railroad industry in order to assist and guide
implementation.
We have hired staff to assist and oversee implementation.
We have worked directly with the FCC to resolve spectrum issues
and improve the approval process related to PTC communication
towers. We have built a PTC system test bed at Transportation
Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado.
We have provided approximately $650 million in grant funds
to support PTC implementation. This includes American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act grants as well as Amtrak grants and other
annual appropriations.
We have requested $825 million to assist commuter
railroads, and we have issued a $967 million loan through the
RRIF [Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing]
program to New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the
Nation's largest commuter railroad.
I have also established a new PTC task force team within
the FRA. That team is aggressively managing and monitoring each
individual railroad's progress, tracking data, ensuring we have
the most accurate and up-to-date information, and reporting in
to me multiple times per week. This team is working in close
collaboration with the many individuals at FRA based here in
Washington and in offices around the country already working on
this challenge.
But, unfortunately, despite FRA's financial support,
technical assistance, and warnings, many railroads have stated
publicly that they will still not meet the December 31
deadline. Recently, FRA received updated information about PTC
implementation from 32 of the 38 railroads that we are
currently tracking for enforcement purposes.
Initial analysis indicates that Class I railroads have
completed or partially completed installations of approximately
half of the locomotives that require PTC equipment, deployed
approximately half of the wayside units, replaced approximately
half of signals that need replacement, and completed most of
the required mapping for PTC tracks.
By the end of the year, AAR [Association of American
Railroads] projects that 39 percent of locomotives will be
equipped, 76 percent of wayside interface units will be
installed, 67 percent of base station radios will be installed,
and 34 percent of required employees will be trained.
According to APTA [American Public Transportation
Association], 29 percent of commuter railroads are targeting to
complete installation of PTC equipment by the end of 2015. Full
implementation of PTC for commuter lines is projected by 2020.
FRA continues our work to finalize an enforcement strategy
for those railroads that will miss the deadline. As with any
regulatory enforcement posture, our ultimate goal is to bring
all railroads into compliance as quickly and as safely as
possible.
Starting on January 1, FRA will impose penalties on
railroads that have not fully implemented PTC. Fines will be
based on FRA's PTC penalty guidelines, which establish
different penalties depending on the violation. The penalties
may be assessed per violation per day.
The total amount of penalty each railroad faces depends
upon the amount of implementation progress the railroad has
made. FRA is also planning for what will come after the January
1 deadline.
In both 2014 and 2015, the department and FRA asked
Congress to provide FRA with additional authorities that would
address the safety gap that will exist on many railroads
between January 1, 2016, and each railroad's full PTC
implementation.
These additional authorities would provide FRA with the
ability to review, approve, and require interim safety measures
for individual railroads that may fail to meet the PTC
deadline. These interim safety requirements would be to ensure
railroads are forced to raise the bar on safety if they miss
the deadline, but will not and cannot be used to replace or
extend the deadline.
In conclusion, I want to extend my thanks and appreciation
to this committee for its attention and focus on achieving
implementation as efficiently and quickly as possible. We look
forward to working with you. And I am happy to respond to your
questions. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Ms. Feinberg.
Mr. Mathias, you may proceed.
Mr. Mathias. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Capuano,
Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member DeFazio, and distinguished
members of this subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to
testify here today.
Mr. Denham. Can I ask you to pull your microphone a little
closer.
Mr. Mathias. Promoting the safety of life and property
through the use of wire and radio communication is a top FCC
priority. As the Nation's communications agency, the FCC helps
coordinate spectrum acquisition by freight and passenger
railroads. We also manage the statutorily required historic
preservation and environmental reviews of the poles, antennas,
and associated infrastructure used to support Positive Train
Control, or PTC, systems.
Because the FCC was given no mandate to set aside spectrum
for PTC purposes, the FCC has been working closely with the
railroads since 2008 to identify available spectrum on the
secondary market.
The FCC has acted swiftly upon request to approve multiple
spectrum transactions, including the freight railroads'
acquisition of spectrum nationwide, Amtrak's acquisition of
spectrum in the Northeast Corridor, as well as requested
waivers to better enable and test PTC deployment. To be clear,
the Commission plays no role in designing or assessing the
railroad's choice of PTC technology. The railroads are
responsible for PTC design and deployment.
The country's major freights have led the way in securing
spectrum for PTC. Through private transactions, they acquired
nationwide spectrum in the commercial 220- to 222-megahertz
spectrum band just months before the act became law. These
railroads quickly focused on utilizing this spectrum when the
PTC mandate was established.
When they did, the freight railroads effectively drove
other railroads, including Amtrak and commuter rails, to
spectrum in and around the 220-megahertz band for their PTC
operations as well. For most of the country, this strategy
appears to have been successful.
The FCC has proactively facilitated and continues to
facilitate freight and passenger railroads' successful
acquisition and lease of spectrum on secondary markets. We have
also granted the railroads extensive technical waivers, more
transmitter power, for example, to facilitate the use of this
spectrum for PTC purposes.
Spectrum acquisition in the Northeast Corridor differs from
the rest of the country because Amtrak and the freights are
deploying two different PTC systems that were not from the
outset engineered to be compatible in the same spectrum band.
So unlike in a market such as Chicago, where the freight
railroads tell us that 11 different railroads can share the
same block of spectrum using a single PTC system, in the
Northeast Corridor, the choice to deploy 2 systems requires 2
blocks of spectrum far enough apart to avoid interference.
FCC staff will continue to work with Amtrak, the commuter
rails that use the Amtrak system in the Northeast Corridor, and
the freights to help identify solutions to these problems.
PTC infrastructure deployments are also a priority. Federal
environmental and historic preservation law requires the FCC to
assess the potential impacts of agency ``undertakings,''
including potential impact on properties significant to tribal
nations.
To facilitate this process, in May 2014, the Advisory
Council on Historic Preservation issued streamlined rules for
future PTC pole deployments. Under this streamlined approach,
the majority of proposed rules are exempt from historic
preservation review.
The Commission has the capacity to receive 1,400 exempt and
nonexempt pole applications from the major freight railroads
every 2 weeks. By the middle of June, the freight railroads
could have submitted as many as 40,000 poles for review. In
fact, the railroads have only submitted around 8,300 poles, or
about 21 percent of our total capacity.
Going forward, issues in the Northeast Corridor remain
complex and pose significant challenges. We stand ready to work
with Amtrak, the commuter rails, and the freight rails there
and across the country to help them meet their evolving
deployment needs.
We appreciate this subcommittee's commitment and leadership
on this issue and its efforts to ensure the successful
deployment of PTC systems.
The FCC is committed to working collaboratively with
Congress, our Federal partners, and the railroads to get the
job done. I look forward to answering any questions you may
have. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Mathias.
I would now like to call on the representative from
Florida, Ms. Brown, to introduce our next witness, Mr. Lonegro.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am pleased to introduce Mr. Frank Lonegro--and you can
correct that name, Frank, when it is your time--who will be
testifying today for CSX railroad located in my hometown of
Jacksonville, Florida. Frank has worked for CSX since 2000,
focused on technology issues, and has taken the lead for the
Class I Positive Train Control initiative.
CSX is an employer that plays a major strong role in the
Jacksonville community. The company and its CEO, Michael Ward,
have been a long advocate for veterans in Florida and
throughout the United States.
Let me just say that I am very proud of the Wounded Warrior
program. They gave the first million dollars, and they have
received 2 years in a row the top award from the President for
over 33 percent of their employees are veterans.
So, with that, I want to welcome Frank and the other
panelists. And thank you for joining us today.
Mr. Lonegro. Thank you, Member Brown.
And, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, members of the
committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I am Frank
Lonegro, vice president of service design at CSX. And since the
passage of the PTC mandate, I have been the project owner for
PTC at CSX. I also chair the industry committee that is tasked
with achieving PTC interoperability across 60,000 miles of
railroad.
Given the recent Amtrak tragedy and remembering all of
those who have been impacted by PTC preventable accidents, I
believe four issues are presented for resolution by this
committee:
Number 1, why are most railroads unable to meet PTC by
2015?
Number 2, why are a few railroads able to make 2015 while
the remainder cannot?
Number 3, what happens if a PTC extension is not passed?
Number 4, what is the path forward?
Since PTC was mandated, accidents have happened that were
PTC-preventable. A turnkey system did not exist in 2008 and had
to be created by the rail industry. That task continues.
As one of the many railroaders working on PTC every day,
let me reflect briefly on accountability. I am ultimately
responsible for PTC at CSX. And, unfortunately, it will not be
completed by the deadline. This is not the result of lack of
will or lack of commitment.
To the contrary, CSX has provided people, allocated ample
funding, and ensured executive support. We are hundreds of
millions of dollars over budget, yet CSX has never hesitated to
provide the required capital. With these ingredients of
success, companies do not fail at delivering projects that are
achievable from the outset.
Congress shares in this responsibility. The 2015 PTC
deadline was not grounded in fact. It was a political
compromise reached after Chatsworth. Various constituencies in
the House and Senate advocated for 2012, 2014, and 2018. The
compromise halfway between those extremes gave us 2015, a
political date, not necessarily an achievable date.
Other responsible stakeholders are FRA, FCC, and the
supplier community. The industry has thousands working on PTC.
The FRA has about a dozen. The PTC final rule was published in
August of 2014, hundreds of pages of regulations, 6 years after
the mandate.
FRA is requiring significant documentation, validation,
safety assessments, and fault analyses. All are geared toward
deploying a safe and reliable system, but also require a
tremendous amount of time and effort on both sides.
No one anticipated the regulatory requirements relating to
PTC towers. When FCC realized they would have to clear 20,000
towers, they imposed a moratorium to develop a better process.
That moratorium impacted the PTC timeline by over a year. The
resulting review process appears to be working.
FCC has also recently approved the antenna height waiver, J
Block swap, and Canadian border agreement. While each of these
is complicated, we do need a greater emphasis on speed, given
that much work remains, especially solving the PTC radio
interference in the Northeast.
Lastly, given the complexity of the technical task, our
supplier partners have yet to hit a major deadline or deliver
software that is free from defects. In the beginning, I think
we all believed PTC was further along.
A few railroads have indicated that they will make 2015,
most notably, Metrolink in the L.A. Basin and Amtrak in the
Northeast Corridor. Importantly, both railroads have previously
promised completion in 2012.
I remind us of that not to denigrate their great work, but
to illustrate the challenges of PTC even for small deployments.
Successful completion in 2015 will be a testament to 7 years of
hard work by those railroads and great leadership by PTC
veterans like Darrell Maxey and Keith Holt.
There are two main reasons why some railroads will make
2015 while others will not. The first is scale. The Amtrak and
Metrolink deployments are very similar in size, 100 to 150
engines and 300 to 500 miles of railroad. In contrast,
deployment at CSX involves 3,900 engines and 11,000 miles of
railroad, about 25 times larger. More engines and more miles
means more time.
The second is the state of the legacy infrastructure. PTC
is brandnew technology that does not interface with legacy
signaling and dispatching systems. At CSX, PTC is requiring us
to completely replace 7,500 miles of wayside signals,
geospatially map 21,000 rail miles, and enhance our dispatching
system to a precision of one ten-thousandth of a mile, all
while delivering the Nation's freight and passengers. Once we
are finished, it will no longer be our fathers' railroad.
If no extension is passed, the railroads have a serious
legal dilemma. Does the PTC mandate make it illegal to
transport TIH/PIH [toxic by inhalation/poisonous by inhalation]
commodities irrespective of our common carrier obligation?
Similarly, we are also required to allow commuter and
interstate passenger agencies to run on our lines. Which law
should we violate? The passenger requirement or the PTC
mandate?
If we cannot transport TIH/PIH commodities or passengers by
rail, the outcome is not good for the American people or the
American economy. If we continue to haul the commodities and
the passengers which trigger the PTC mandate, we will be in
violation of the law and run the risk of regulatory
enforcement, potential uncapped liability, and questionable
insurance coverage, an untenable situation for CSX and its
employees and shareholders.
The need for an extension is clear. The question is how to
fashion the extension that recognizes the enormity of PTC,
rewards railroads that will make 2015, hold the remaining
railroads accountable to complete the project expeditiously,
and provide legal certainty for shippers, passengers, and
railroads alike.
We look forward to working with you to forge that path
ahead. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Lonegro.
Mr. Orseno, we have met several times already. But if I
have butchered your last name as I have twice already and been
corrected by colleagues, please let us know.
Mr. Orseno. OK. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Denham, and members of this subcommittee.
I would also like to thank Congressman Lipinski. You are
our representative on this subcommittee, and we appreciate your
championship for transportation.
I am Don Orseno, executive director/CEO of Metra as well as
the chair of the APTA Commuter Rail Committee. I was lucky
enough early in my career to be a card-carrying engineer that I
was very proud of. I operate trains every single day. It is an
enormous responsibility that I didn't take lightly, as no
engineer does.
A few years ago I was appointed executive director/CEO of
Metra, and I took those experiences with me early in my career
to my position now. Let me be clear. Safety is paramount at
Metra and, to that end, we are committed to implementing PTC.
But let me also be clear on another item. It is not without
challenges.
Metra is one of the largest commuter rail systems in the
country. Last year we provided over 83.4 million passenger
trips. We primarily serve customers commuting from the suburbs
to work in Chicago. We operate 11 lines with 241 stations. Four
of those lines are owned and operated by the UP [Union Pacific
Railroad] and the BNSF [Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway].
Chicago is the Nation's busiest rail hub and the most complex,
with six of the seven Class I railroads operating throughout
the network.
Coordination of PTC implementation must include all of
these railroads. The BN and UP were further along with PTC
installation than us. So we directed all of our resources to
put equipment on the trains that will be operating on the BN
and the UP so we could be compliant when they were.
Those lines, once they are operational, will be--40 percent
of Metra's fleet will be PTC-compliant, covering 50 percent of
our passengers. The BN equipment installation will be complete
September of 2015, with the UP following closely behind it, the
second quarter of 2016.
We have also made significant progress on Metra-owned
lines. To date, we hired a system integration team, Parsons
Transportation Group, awarded contracts to engineering firms to
design signal system upgrades, and continue to hire the
necessary staff, including leadership positions in the field
installation crews.
Even though we have made substantial progress, challenges
still remain: the limited number of signal design systems,
spectrum availability. In Chicago, it is undetermined if we
have enough spectrum for PTC needs in the region. We won't know
that answer until the spectrum study is completed.
Continuous verification and validation is part of the
testing process to test the reliability and accuracy of PTC. So
far, only testing of individual segments has taken place. The
FRA must also review and certify the railroad's plans.
Interoperability is a huge challenge for Chicago, given the
complexity and the integration of the system.
Metra's costs are approximately $350 million. APTA
estimates approximately $3.5 billion for all commuter
railroads. We receive $150 million per year in Federal formula
funds. These are the same sources of funds that are used for
other safety-related critical infrastructure projects, such as
bridges, tracks, and rolling stock.
Metra has allocated $133 million over the last 2 years for
PTC between our State and Federal partners. The Metra board
approved a $2.4 billion modernization plan last year, which
included $275 million to complete PTC, which is a combination
of borrowing and fare increases. The balance would need to come
from our State and Federal partners, which is uncertain at this
time. There is also a significant operational and maintenance
cost. These are estimated to be $15 million annually for Metra.
Given these substantial challenges, it is no surprise that
no commuter rail system has fully implemented PTC today. Metra
is estimating 2019 for full implementation. Metra, along with
APTA, is asking Congress to provide FRA the authority to grant
individual waivers for the deadline as long as the agencies
show a good-faith effort as determined by the FRA.
Metra is also asking for funding from Congress. On that
note, I would like to thank Representatives Lipinski and
Quigley for introducing H.R. 1405, which reauthorizes the
safety technology program for PTC, which is $200 million
annually for the next 5 years.
Even though PTC will not be fully implemented by the
deadline, Metra, however, has taken significant steps to
provide safeguards for our passengers. For example, we have
reviewed the FRA 2015-03 safety advisory and are in the process
of implementing automatic notifications through our GPS system.
This system will notify the conductor in advance where the
speed is reduced by greater than 20 miles per hour for a bridge
or curve. The conductor will then communicate and remind the
engineer of the restriction.
We have also instituted the C3RS program, which is the
Confidential Close Call Reporting System, in conjunction with
our labor unions at FRA.
Before closing, I wanted to bring to the committee's
attention that, recently, a question was raised at the APTA
Rail Conference with regards to the commuter rail industry's
ability to continue to operate past the PTC deadline as it
relates to insurance liability. The commuter railroads are
currently investigating this matter.
It is Metra's commitment, along with the rest of the
commuter rail industry, to implement PTC as expeditiously as
possible. With that said, we ask Congress to grant the FRA
authority to provide waivers based on good-faith efforts and
the funding to support the implementation of PTC.
I want to thank the committee for inviting me here today,
and I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Orseno.
Mr. Kerwin, you may proceed.
Mr. Kerwin. Thank you.
Good morning, Chairman Denham, Ranking Member Capuano, and
members of the committee. My name is Russell Kerwin, deputy
project manager of Positive Train Control for the Southern
California Regional Rail Authority, a.k.a. Metrolink.
I appreciate the invitation to testify today to update the
subcommittee on the most significant investments Metrolink is
making to increase the safety of our passengers--PTC. I am
proud to report that, as of June 14, Metrolink has fully
implemented PTC in revenue service demonstration, RSD, across
the entire 341-mile network of Metrolink-owned lines.
In addition to this major accomplishment, we will submit
our PTC safety plan to the FRA next week, on June 30, seeking
FRA certification by the end of the year in accordance with the
Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Metrolink operates on 7 routes through 6 counties in
southern California, carrying over 43,000 weekday riders. We
are also a dispatching hub for about 350 trains that traverse
Metrolink property on a daily basis, including trains from
BNSF, UP--Union Pacific, that is--and Amtrak.
Metrolink's PTC program is a locomotive-centric overlay
system based upon the interoperable electronic train management
system, a.k.a. I-ETMS software. The full build-out and testing
of Metrolink's PTC infrastructure was completed over the past 6
years, which includes PTC onboard equipment installed and
tested on all 109 locomotives and cab cars, all antennas,
wayside devices, and PTC radios installed and operational, a
robust communication network built out and tested, and a new
hardened dispatch and operations facility for PTC constructed
and put into service under the project.
In addition to our network of owned lines, we are also
working closely with our railroad partners--BNSF, Union
Pacific, Amtrak, and the North County Transit District--to
ensure PTC implementation is achieved throughout the region.
We have been very fortunate to have tremendous support from
our local freight partners, and we appreciate the many
challenges to implementing PTC, most of which have also
impacted our program.
They include the prolonged nationwide development of this
interoperable technology and the need for ongoing software
upgrades, development of our back-office server and dispatching
systems, relentless testing, impacts to operations, challenges
in acquiring spectrum, and funding constraints.
In regards to spectrum, Metrolink has been working with the
FCC through many challenges to secure approval of the spectrum
that we entered into purchase agreement for in 2010. Currently,
Metrolink is trying to follow the same procedures under which
the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau recently granted
Amtrak's application.
Through our partnership with the freight railroads,
Metrolink has been fortunate to execute a 5-year lease for
spectrum from PTC-220, LLC. This lease enables us to meet our
near-term needs. However, for long-term needs, we are
attempting to acquire our own spectrum.
Our current PTC program costs the agency $216.4 million. To
put that in context, it is roughly equivalent to Metrolink's
entire annual operating budget of $221 million. The majority of
our PTC funding, about 85 percent of it, came from State and
local sources.
The investment in our PTC program has been very significant
for the agency. However, it was the priority of the Metrolink
board and our funding partners to implement this lifesaving
technology.
Moving forward, the agency will be required to continue to
prioritize funding as we transition into operations. The
ongoing costs for project staff, contractors, consultants, and
vendors to operate and maintain PTC will increase our budget
costs. Metrolink is proud to be leading the industry on PTC
implementation. Despite the many challenges, we have maintained
our unwavering focus on advancing our PTC program.
I would like to thank Chairman Denham and Ranking Member
Capuano for the opportunity to testify and share our
experience. I will close my remarks by stating that, at
Metrolink, we continue to believe that safety is foundational
and our investments in PTC as well as a number of other safety
technologies are evidence of this unyielding commitment to the
safety of our passengers. Thank you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Kerwin.
Our first round of questioning will be 5 minutes. I would
ask members to keep their questions to 5 minutes.
I will start things out this morning, first of all, with
Ms. Feinberg. Again, let me thank you for your response. The
last committee meeting, we did something somewhat out of the
ordinary and asked you for a quick response with some of the
questions that this committee had on the Amtrak crash.
I think that those issues are important to resolve and
understand quickly. And this committee thanks you for your
rapid response. We are getting those answers to those questions
back out to committee members this morning.
But I did want to continue on an exchange that you and I
have had several times now. I pressed FRA on: If Positive Train
Control is such a big priority, why are you not using
California high-speed rail dollars to upgrade not only the
corridor, but those connecting routes in California?
In California, obviously, where PTC was started, it is a
big concern for those that ride the rail in California. It is a
big concern for those that live by rail in California. You
know, this is a national issue. But in our home State, we are
looking to provide leadership to resolve the safety concerns
that people have quickly.
And the California High-Speed Rail Authority continues to
have its challenges. And certainly, by their current burn rate
of dollars, they do not appear to be able to spend the money
that has been allocated to them by the deadline.
And so, in our ongoing exchanges, what else could you use
that money for? Could it be used for safety in California?
And I got your written response that it wasn't possible,
but I wanted to bring one issue to your attention.
Under California High-Speed Rail Authority's investment
strategy for phase 1, they specifically state, ``Electrifying
the entire Caltrain corridor so as to replace outdated diesel
technology with electric locomotives or electric multiple-unit
train sets and introducing Positive Train Control will not only
speed up Caltrain's service, but pave the way for high-speed
rail. Positive train control is a Federal mandate that will
reduce the potential for train-to-train collisions and improve
signaling at crossings so as to allow increased train
frequencies while enhancing safety.''
This money was taken from California high-speed rail. They
approved the grant agreement to put it in a different corridor
to upgrade Caltrain and put PTCs. Obviously, by their own
words, this is a priority for them.
Also, previously FRA has diverted funding from the Central
Valley with $400 million that went to the Transbay Joint Powers
Authority to construct the foundation for high-speed rail
service at the Transbay terminal.
Again, you are moving money out of California's Central
Valley hours away to where it may connect some day, if it ever
gets built, to San Francisco and to L.A. through Caltrain.
And under the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program,
the following activities are expressly eligible for grants, as
noted in the Federal Register: acquiring, constructing,
improving or inspecting equipment, track and track structures,
highway rail grade crossings, improvements related to intercity
passenger rail service, including communication and
signalization improvements.
That sounds a whole lot like PTC to me. Positive train
control affects each one of those areas. So I understand by
this they would be able to use these same dollars.
So I know from your response you say the grantee would have
to approve this process. The grantee in this case would be the
California High-Speed Rail Authority.
But, again, if they are not spending the money and they
already have the precedent of transferring money and safety is
all of our number-one concern, why would we not take money that
is available to be spent in a corridor that is available to be
spent under Prop 1A and address safety for our State?
Ms. Feinberg. Mr. Chairman, we have gone back and forth
about this a lot, and I am happy to continue to go back and
forth with you, and I know our staffs have had many
conversations about it as well.
As I said in my letter to you earlier this week, we do not
believe that we can take California high-speed rail money and
put it in other priorities. I explained----
Mr. Denham. But you have done that a couple of times
already. They requested that you change the grant approval, and
you have granted that request. And they have done it several
times for PTC, for Caltrain, and for the Transbay Joint Powers
Authority, $400 million, $171 million, and another grant for
PTC. It has been done several times already.
Ms. Feinberg. I join you in a concern that the California
High-Speed Rail Authority is not burning through ARRA [American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act] money in a sufficiently fast
manner, and we are working with them very closely to make sure
that they meet all of their obligations to do so.
Our legal analysis of where we are at this moment is that
we cannot shift money that has already been obligated to
California high-speed rail and move it to another priority.
Even if we were willing to take money away from California
High-Speed Rail Authority, it would go back to the U.S.
Treasury. But we will continue to engage with you on this and
talk through it with you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
That appears to be a change in policy, since it has already
happened several times. I would understand if you need them as
the grantee to make the request to FRA, then my question would
be to the California High-Speed Rail Authority: If they have
already spent money on PTC, why, if this is a priority for FRA,
the administration, and the California High-Speed Rail
Authority, are they not improving safety in California?
Ms. Feinberg. I do not believe it is a change in policy,
but we can continue the conversation.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
My time is expired. We will have a second round because I
have got many other questions from a more national perspective.
But, as you know, California is a big concern of mine and so is
California high-speed rail.
I now go to Mr. DeFazio for 5 minutes. And I would
recognize the fact that Mr. Capuano once again has been very
gracious to our colleagues on the other side to skip his time
so that others may go first.
Mr. DeFazio. I don't think ``Capuano'' and ``gracious'' go
together in the same sentence, but certainly I would defer to
your judgment, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Feinberg, you heard what CSX raised about the potential
conflict with the hard deadline and whether or not their
continued carriage of inhalable and other hazardous and
passenger--can you resolve that or do we have to statutorily
resolve that?
Ms. Feinberg. The Congress is going to have to act. I
cannot make a legal decision for CSX based on their liability.
Mr. DeFazio. And you can't give relief because of the hard
deadline that was set.
Ms. Feinberg. I cannot extend the deadline.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. Now, you talked about enforcement and you
talked about penalties, and I would just like to get a little
insight into that.
We are looking forward now, and there is a lot of history
here, a lot of questions about how we got to this point and how
some people are much closer to meeting the deadline than
others, et cetera.
So are you looking at penalties that exact funds from the
railroads? You know, wouldn't it be better if you mandate
everybody puts together a schedule that you would approve or
not approve in terms of how quickly they can implement, put in
benchmarks, and then look at assessing penalties going forward?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, that would really be extending the
deadline. That would be our view. I mean, the deadline is the
deadline. And if we then communicate to railroads, ``If you
don't like the deadline that we have, why don't you come up
with a plan that involves a new deadline for yourself,'' that
would actually, in my opinion, be extending the deadline.
Mr. DeFazio. OK.
Ms. Feinberg. So we would not want to go about that.
But in terms of the penalties, there is, you know, three or
four pages of specific fines and penalties that were finalized
back in 2010 that, you know, go from everything from not
equipping a locomotive to failure to have PTC in a certain
segment, so quite detailed in the public realm.
Mr. DeFazio. Yeah. But what I am trying to get at here is
everybody here wants to get this done as quickly as possible.
There is a lot of history.
And in order to go forward, I am wondering if we give you
flexibility from the deadline, but we give you a mandate that
it will be implemented as soon as technologically and
physically practicable, you know, by each of those who do not
meet the deadline and then you set benchmarks and then they
violate the benchmarks, that is when I think fines might be
appropriate.
Would that be a way to go forward?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, you know, I take my cues from the
Congress, and I enforce what the Congress mandates. So if the
Congress instructs us to enter negotiations like that, we would
do that.
But, again, my concern would be entering into brandnew
negotiations with each individual railroad based on what they
would like their new deadline to be.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, I am not thinking so much what they
would like. I am saying that is why as soon as practicable
physically and, you know, I mean, not something that meets
their convenience or their capital outlays or whatever. It is
just like--anyway, this is a difficult issue.
Quickly to the FCC, you now have the capacity to deal with
these pole applications and approvals in a streamlined way.
And, as I understand it, there are quite a few that have not
been applied for and you aren't pushing your capacity here. Is
that correct?
Mr. Mathias. That is correct, sir. Thank you. Since our
streamline process was put into place, we have had the capacity
to review about 40,000 poles. To date, we have only received
applications to review about 8,300. So we are ready for more
work.
Mr. DeFazio. OK. That is something to take into account as
we are moving forward.
This is off the subject, but I have got to ask you very
quickly. Mr. Mathias, 5.9 gigahertz--part of the problem here
was you have to go out and buy spectrum and negotiate and
Amtrak had to negotiate and I am really concerned about what
you might do with the 5.9 gigahertz for smart cars and
communication between vehicles of the future.
There are some proposals to maybe parcel that up a little
bit, which might lead to interference, which might lead us to a
point where smart car manufacturers of the future are going to
have to go out and buy spectrum as opposed to having something
reserved. And I just hope you would take that under advisement.
Mr. Mathias. Thank you, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. Yeah. OK.
And then to CSX, how soon can you get it done?
Mr. Lonegro. At CSX, our plans call for us to be hardware-
installed, meaning all of the wayside interface units, all the,
you know, obsolete signal replacement work that we are doing,
all the locomotives equipped, all the technology hardware
installed by the end of 2018 with full deployment by 2020.
And, as I say that, though, I think it is important to know
that, by the end of 2018, we will have a significant portion of
the system operable. So it is not as if we get to 2020 and then
we turn on the 11,000 miles that we have under our PTC
footprint.
It is a very methodical, you know, almost linear
implementation pretty much from here on out. We will have about
500 miles in place by the end of the year, which is about the
size of the corridor and about the size of the Metrolink
deployment. And then we get into the thousands of miles per
year that ramps us up through 2020.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, again, that seems like a long time. And
that is why I was proposing the idea that the Administrator--I
don't think we should be giving people a blanket exemption till
2020 because some people are going to take till 2020 who don't
need to. Maybe you do.
But I think there needs to be some level of review of that,
and I think that is something the committee will be looking at.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.
Ms. Feinberg, you have testified and others at FRA have
testified before Congress that, if the December 31 deadline is
not extended, that you will use all the enforcement powers,
including warnings, emergency orders, enforcement fines, to
encourage PTC to be adopted.
But will you share with Congress a transparent policy with
regard to how you will determine who the good actors are, the
bad actors are? I think you have categorized them that way. And
what I am looking for is metrics. Are there ways to measure it
so that it is not arbitrary, so everybody knows going into
this?
And I see you have some bullet points I have here on things
you intend to do, but I am really looking for how we measure
CSX versus BNSF versus UP versus Metrolink to be able to
determine that.
Ms. Feinberg. Absolutely. And we would not want to be
arbitrary or subjective. We would want this to be quite black
and white so that railroads would know what to expect and that
the Congress would know what to expect.
What was summarized in my oral testimony was an attempt to
be quick and to move through the 5 minutes quickly. But our
plan is to take the penalty and fine schedule that is already
laid out and to be very transparent about what our approach
will be and to communicate it both to the Congress and to
railroads so that everyone knows what to expect.
Mr. Shuster. Will that be seen? Will we be able to see that
shortly? When do you expect to have that done? Because the
deadline is getting awfully close and we want to make sure that
there is a transparent--because, again, I have seen agencies in
the past be very arbitrary, don't like one person over another.
Ms. Feinberg. No. No. That would not be our approach, and
that would not be the way we would go about it. We will be very
transparent about it.
We owe the Congress an update on PTC implementation on how
railroads are doing in implementing PTC. Due to recent feedback
we have gotten back from the Congress, it is clear that the
Congress would like that report to also include very specific
information about how each railroad is doing individually, but
also what our enforcement strategy will be. So we are now
including that in the report and plan to get it to you as
quickly as possible.
Mr. Shuster. And if you could go to levying fines against
people, will that be on a daily basis? Monthly? Weekly? How
would you levy those?
Ms. Feinberg. The statute lays out that it can be per
violation per day, but there is some amount of discretion
there.
Mr. Shuster. And would you consider shutting down a
railroad?
Ms. Feinberg. I think that would be actually up to--the
railroad's own lawyers would probably make the determination.
We have certainly heard from railroads that their lawyers
are making that determination based on both their liability and
the likelihood of the magnitude of fines and penalties.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much.
And in terms of transit systems and commuter rails, my
understanding is you folks are having a very difficult time. I
know that SEPTA [Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority] down in the Southeast has to make some real tough
decisions on whether they are going to repair, replace cars,
track, because there is just only so much money in the budget.
Can you tell us a little bit about Chicago?
Mr. Orseno. Yes. Thank you, Chairman Shuster.
That is definitely a major challenge for us. As I stated
earlier, we get about $150 million through our Federal formula
funds. PTC alone is $350 million to $400 million.
You know, we have to balance using that money for other
safety-sensitive concerns like bridges. I mean, bridges are
very important. We have got many bridges that were built in the
1800s, and we are in the process of doing those projects.
It is very important for us to find the funding and make
sure we can get this implemented. It is a very significant
safety enhancement. There is no question about it. But it also
competes with every other safety issue that we have.
Mr. Shuster. And you have got to be the most challenged of
all the systems because you have all Class I's coming in around
Chicago. So that interoperability--is that a significant
challenge or is that something you are moving towards working
out?
Mr. Orseno. That is a huge significant challenge for us
because you have got six of the seven Class I railroads coming
in and out of Chicago that have to communicate between each
train, all the signal locations, and the back office. That has
been probably one of the most significant challenges for the
industry, is the interoperability.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much.
Now go to Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Feinberg, first of all, let me just say that every last
one of us supports safety in the industry, but I think you are
leaving me when you talk about daily fines.
The industry itself has spent over $5 billion on Positive
Train Control, and I don't feel that the Federal Railroad
Administration or the U.S. Federal Communications Commission--
we have had daily--not daily--but we have had meetings where we
have discussed spectrum, and we don't think--I don't think that
the administration has done all they need to do to move us
forward.
And to sit here and say that we are going to have daily
fines and we may have to shut down the industry is not going to
fly. And so I would like for you to respond to that
Ms. Feinberg. Ma'am, I was responding to the question about
what our authority is in terms of fining. We are now working on
our enforcement strategy and will communicate it to you.
Ms. Brown. No. No. I am not talking about enforcement. I am
talking about support, what we have done to help the industry,
for example, with the spectrum.
Amtrak had to purchase it. How come we did not provide it
for the industry? But I--and they had a hard time getting it,
and that delayed the projects.
Ms. Feinberg. I will let the FCC answer the spectrum
question, but I can tell you from the FRA's perspective, we
have hired a significant staff. One of the witnesses previously
said there is only a dozen staff at FRA working on PTC. That is
absolutely incorrect. We have staff in Washington and across
the country. We have offered loans. We have asked for grants.
We have offered financial assistance. We have offered
assistance across the board. We are still waiting for safety
plans to come in from railroads based on implementation----
Ms. Brown. I hear what you are saying. But as far as I am
concerned, you all have been the caboose as far as helping and
assisting us moving forward. And I don't mean it in a negative
sense, but we have had--you haven't been here the entire time--
we have been going over this for years. And we just have not
gotten the administration where it needs to be as far as
assistance moving forward.
I mean, when we say Positive Train Control, it is a
combination. What happened at Amtrak, it wasn't just: didn't
have Positive Train Control, didn't have the proper equipment
as far as the cars are concerned, had to purchase the spectrum.
It is just a whole list of things that I feel that the
administration should have worked--and I don't mean this
administration, I am saying it has been a multiplicity of
administrations that haven't done everything that they need to
do to get us where we need to be.
Now, even if they come up with, well, here we are, even if
they come up with it in 2018, then it still would take 2 or 3
years to determine whether or not the system is working
together.
Ms. Feinberg. Ma'am, I can only speak for this
administration. I can't speak for previous administrations. But
this administration has done a great deal to try to bring
railroads along and into compliance with a mandate that was
passed by this Congress in 2008. And we have been sounding the
alarm for years about our concern that railroads were not going
to meet the deadline. And so I believe this administration has
done a great deal of work to bring railroads along, but we have
not seen the progress that we need to.
Ms. Brown. All right. I am just letting you know you are
leaving me. But go ahead to the next person.
Mr. Mathias. You are asking about the question of the
Amtrak spectrum?
Ms. Brown. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mathias. Thank you.
The way the railroads approached this process initially,
they selected a spectrum band in the 220 to 222 megahertz, I am
sorry to get technical on you. But it is a part of the spectrum
that was already owned by other people. It has licensees.
Unfortunately, in that case what we would have had to do to
give that spectrum to anyone else is we would have had to have
taken it away from the existing owners through a process that
would have required compensation, finding them additional
spectrum, and also potentially would have led to litigation. So
what we thought would be a more productive approach would be to
actively work with Amtrak to find spectrum on the secondary
market that they could use for PTC in the same spectrum block.
Ms. Brown. Well, as we move forward, that is an issue that
the Congress needs to address.
My next round I will go to you, Frank.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Brown.
Mr. Rice, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Feinberg, and you may not have been around when all
this started, but why is there the need to create this new
system? I mean, it seems to me that there are so many systems
that are similar to this that would be incredibly cheaper and
quicker to institute. Why did we settle on creating this entire
new system?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, I think PTC is actually an overlay of
some other systems. But if you are referring to ATC [Automatic
Train Control] and some of the technologies we have talked
about in this committee previously, it is basically a step
beyond that. But it would assist in taking human factors off
the table. It is one of the most important technologies that we
believe can be implemented for rail safety.
Mr. Rice. Mr. Kerwin, I am going to switch over to you
because maybe you know more about the technical aspects. You
are a project manager, right, you are putting this stuff in.
Mr. Kerwin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rice. I know that there are GPS systems out there that
you can buy for a thousand dollars that will control the motion
of a vehicle, right, stop it, start it, and all that kind of
thing.
Mr. Kerwin. It tells you where you are at, but as far as
controlling the vehicle----
Mr. Rice. I have had one on my boat that cost $900 that
would steer my boat to a point. Why is this so much more
difficult than that?
Mr. Kerwin. The key to PTC is it is not a specific
technology as much as a specification that it prevents train-
to-train collisions----
Mr. Rice. Well, I mean, as long as the GPSs were connected,
it seems to me that it could do that very, very easily. I mean,
this seems to me that this is light years easier than a Google
car, or whatever you call the thing, because a Google car has
got to sense people walking in front of it and obstructions
appearing, and this doesn't have to do any of that. This just
has to control motion. I mean, all it can do, it can't steer,
it has got to go how fast, how slow, or stop, right?
Mr. Kerwin. Yeah.
Mr. Rice. It is not that complicated.
Mr. Kerwin. I understand and appreciate your point. It is
much more complicated than it would seem. One of the key
factors is interoperability. The PTC mandate requires seamless
transition from one railroad to another railroad's property and
the communication between different railroads.
Mr. Rice. No, I understand that. But, I mean, this GPS
technology exists today.
Mr. Lonegro, I am going to switch over to you. Do you have
technology today before this technology we are talking about
here that you know where all your locomotives are? I mean, can
you tell where they are at any time when they are running?
Mr. Lonegro. We have had GPS on our locomotives for, I
would say, the last half a dozen years or so. But I think it is
important to understand GPS is one of, I will say, 100, just
for raw numbers, inputs into PTC. It simply provides one input,
and that is where the train itself is. It is not an indicator
of speed, it is not an indicator of grade, it is not an
indicator of where the red signal is, it is not the indicator
of where the work zone is. And I could go on and on, but I know
you don't want me to. But that is just one input into it.
The technology you referred to earlier about ACSES
[Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System] is based on a cab
signal method of operation. At CSX we only have about 400 of
the 11,000 miles uses cab signal as a method of operation. And
then ATC is built on top of that, and the ACSES system that
Amtrak is using is built on top of that, and it is not a system
that we utilize to run our trains.
Mr. Rice. All these other guys up here are dealing with
taxpayers' money and you are not. Did you all do an analysis of
whether it would be cheaper to use some of these legacy systems
that could control the train or to create this entire new
system? I think this says they are doing 23,000 locomotives
that cost $9 billion. That is about $400,000 a locomotive. Did
CSX do an analysis to determine whether it would be cheaper to
modify the existing legacy systems or to create this entire new
system?
Mr. Lonegro. So there are a couple answers to your
question. In the beginning, yes, we did an analysis about
whether we should go the Amtrak route and the ACSES system or
whether we should go with the system that the freight railroads
had been working on since the mid-1990s which the precursor was
known as CBTM, which was Communications-Based Train Management.
The thing that is important to know is that there are
generally three or four methods of operations that freight
railroads use to navigate their trains. A very small proportion
of that is cab signal, as I mentioned, signal territory, and
then nonsignal territory, and there are permutations of all of
that. The only thing that ACSES works on is that first method
of operation, which is cab signal territory.
So we would have had to change the entire method of
operation of the entire railroad to cab signal which would have
required both wayside changes, technology changes, as well as
locomotive changes. And, yes, we did look at the two and
believe that I-ETMS or the freight version of PTC was the right
way to go, and still believe that today, sir.
Mr. Rice. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Kerwin, you said you spent $216 million on PTC. You
have got it fully installed now?
Mr. Kerwin. We have it fully deployed on our network of
owned lines. We are working with our freight partners and
Amtrak to get those systems in service.
Mr. Rice. How many locomotives do you have?
Mr. Kerwin. 109 locomotive and cab cars that need to be
equipped.
Mr. Rice. OK. So you spent about $2 million per locomotive
then?
Mr. Kerwin. Our total cost is--our budget is $216 million
and we have spent about $200 million of that. That is not just
installations on locomotives. There is a tremendous amount of
back-office components and wayside components as well.
Mr. Rice. Sounds ridiculously expensive to me. He is
messing with his dollars, I believe, if he says he did the
analysis that came in cheaper that way, I understand.
Thank you.
Mr. Denham. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this hearing. Obviously, we all want to make sure that
we do everything we can for safety. It has been a very
difficult issue. I want to thank Ms. Feinberg for her work on
this and other things. A very difficult time coming into the
position as Administrator here.
I just want to first make sure that we are all clear. You
are saying that FRA doesn't have the authority to shut down
railroads. It is the fines that are what the FRA is able to
level if the mandate is not extended.
Ms. Feinberg. Ultimately, if we needed to take the action
to shut down a railroad, I think we could do that. But my point
was that I think what we are hearing from railroads is that is
a decision that they are making in consultation with their
lawyers on how they would operate on January 1 if they are not
fully implemented.
Mr. Lipinski. That makes sense to me. Mr. Lonegro, Mr.
Orseno, I don't know if you want to add anything to that in
regard to the fines and the impact that they could have on you.
Mr. Orseno. Yes, thank you, Congressman Lipinski. Being in
the commuter side of the industry, we depend very heavily on
tax dollars. What the commuter rail industry has advocated for
was an extension, not a categorical extension, but an extension
based on good faith efforts based on the railroad's ability to
complete PTC.
I don't think, personally, it would be in the public's best
interest to fine railroads that typically don't have the
funding to implement PTC. I think we need to find a solution
where we can implement PTC as expeditiously as possible and not
fine the railroads, because it is just coming right out of our
pot that we use for bridges and cars and everything else it
takes to operate the railroad.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you.
Mr. Lonegro, do you have anything you----
Mr. Lonegro. Yes, sir, if I may. It doesn't matter how big
the bear chasing you is or how big the cattle prod is, if you
are running as fast as you can, you can't run any faster. And
so the fines--I mean, we have spent $1.2 billion. We have got
1,000 people working on the project. It is hard to say that we
haven't put the best foot forward that we possibly could.
And so we have supplied the FRA with both an aggregate
level of information in terms of where we have been. We have
done that on an annual basis since the end of 2012. The NTSB
has asked for it in the interim 6 months. We have provided that
information. We have given a prognosis on a railroad-by-
railroad basis about when we will be done.
Mr. Lipinski. I don't have much time, and I don't want to--
--
Mr. Lonegro. So I don't believe the fines would be helpful.
Mr. Lipinski. All right. First of all, we all want to sit
up here and find villains. And in this situation I think it is
very complex, and there are not easy answers to this. We just
want to move forward as quickly as possible. I have been in
favor, I have tried, I have worked on getting more Federal
funding, especially for commuter rail.
Mr. Orseno, so you are saying about $350 million to finish
by 2019. Is that the----
Mr. Orseno. That is correct. That is a conservative number,
as we get moving into the process further along, as all these
things have a tendency to change. But that is a conservative
number.
Mr. Lipinski. And did you receive any funding from the
Railroad Safety Technology Grant Program or any other FRA grant
programs?
Mr. Orseno. No, we have not.
Mr. Lipinski. And would additional Federal funding help
expedite the safety efforts and help Metra invest in its
infrastructure?
Mr. Orseno. There is a very strong possibility that
additional funding would help us move the project along faster.
But I also want to be very clear that there is only a limited
number of resources that are available for installation and
purchasing things and the supply and demand chain.
We definitely can look at moving it quicker, and if we had
Federal funding we could take the funding that we are using for
that right now for other things. Like I explained before, we
have got cars that are 60 years old. We have got bridges that
were built in the 1800s. We could address some of those issues.
Mr. Lipinski. I just want to also make the point that Metra
has significantly increased--has needed to increase fares as a
long-term plan of increasing fares. So you are doing your part
in regard to that.
Very quickly, before I conclude, I want to touch on one
other safety-related issue with Administrator Feinberg.
Regardless of whatever plan FRA chooses or is mandated to use
moving forward, I hope your agency keeps careful tabs as I do
on CN's [Canadian National Railway's] PTC efforts and the
reports they submit. We already know from CN's reports that
they have the least ambitious and aggressive timeline for
finishing their PTC installations and some other issues we have
had with them, which we have discussed, and I think we need to
make sure we follow up and keep the rails as safe as possible.
Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Feinberg. Certainly. And if I could just make one point
in response to the back and forth, we have asked for a sum
total of $2 billion to go towards PTC implementation and
technologies, $825 million in GROW AMERICA, but altogether $2
billion. So we are absolutely in favor of additional Federal
funding going to PTC implementation.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Perry, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Ms. Feinberg. I have got a question here for
you. Start out with a little bit of a statement. Just to make
sure I am clear, it is my understanding the FRA--and this comes
from testimony--FRA will use all its enforcement powers,
including warnings, emergency orders, and enforcement fines to
encourage PTC adoption. Do we know how the FRA would assess the
fines? Would they be assessed daily? Is there a policy that has
been defined yet regarding that?
Ms. Feinberg. So the goal of our enforcement actions, and I
think probably any safety regulator's enforcement actions, is
to bring about compliance and implementation as safely and
efficiently as possible.
Mr. Perry. I understand the goal. Do you have a policy? Do
we know what is coming?
Ms. Feinberg. As we discussed a little bit earlier, we are
finalizing that now. Most of the enforcement policy is public
and has been public since 2010. There are various fines and
penalties based on whether it is locomotives or segments of
track. But most of it has been public since 2010. And we are,
in response to the Congress' request, finalizing our strategy
now so that we can be completely transparent about what
railroads and the Congress can expect.
Mr. Perry. So it might be daily, it might be otherwise?
Ms. Feinberg. That is correct.
Mr. Perry. OK. So a few weeks ago when you were here
shortly after the horrible mishap in Philadelphia, I asked you
how much of the $1.3 billion in stimulus money that was
received some time ago--because it was such an issue, right,
and there were questions about Congress and one particular
party not being responsive and cutting money for PTC--so how
much of the stimulus money, when everything was in one hand in
this town, was spent on PTC for Amtrak, in particular in the
Northeast Corridor, right? Do you remember that question?
Ms. Feinberg. I do remember that question, and it is $400
million of ARRA went towards PTC. That is not Amtrak specific.
And, I am sorry, I didn't realize you wanted just Amtrak
specific. But it is $400 million total.
Mr. Perry. $400 million. All right.
Ms. Feinberg. I believe it is $36 million for Amtrak.
Mr. Perry. OK. All right. So right now, and that is Federal
funding, we are looking at $9 billion is what the estimated
cost of freight railroads. Right? We spent----
Ms. Feinberg. Total.
Mr. Perry. Yeah. Total. Right? With this deadline. But you
can see the dichotomy, you can see the difference, right? We
don't have PTC where we have money, and we are asking for
exponentially more. We're not asking----
Ms. Feinberg. We are asking.
Mr. Perry [continuing]. But it is the requirement for,
right, investor owned? This is private money, $9 billion. Let
me ask you about the arbitrary--the deadline. I am calling it
arbitrary. What is your opinion about the deadline? Does it
take into account the technical aspects? Does it take into
account the frequency spectrum aspects? Does it take into
account the timeline where the FRA took nearly a year to
approve one of the single plans, one of the plans that is
required by each railroad? Does it take into account those
things, the deadline?
Ms. Feinberg. It is your deadline. It is the Congress'
deadline.
Mr. Perry. I am asking your opinion.
Ms. Feinberg. I believe it is a good deadline. And, in
fact, it was the deadline that was reached during negotiations.
It was preferred by the railroads.
Mr. Perry. I understand. So you say it is good, but does it
take into account those things?
Ms. Feinberg. I believe that in 2008, when you passed this
deadline, you took those things into account.
Mr. Perry. You think we did. OK. And we foresaw all the
things that might occur or not occur regarding frequency
spectrum, regarding approvals, regarding finances. That was all
known. There was no political solution to the two sides, one
wanting earlier, one wanting later.
Ms. Feinberg. I think there was an understanding in 2008
that while this would be complicated, it had been called for
since 1969 and would not be so complicated it would be missed.
Mr. Perry. OK. Well, I asked for your opinion. I appreciate
it. So under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2015, FRA
was directed to provide a report to Congress on implementation
within 180 days. Do you know what the status of that is?
Ms. Feinberg. Yes. Previously we had a quick discussion
about it. It was due to the committee, I believe, a week ago.
In recent weeks we have gotten additional requests from the
Congress about additional information they want in that report.
We are updating it now and should have it to you in days.
Mr. Perry. But was it on time or wasn't it?
Ms. Feinberg. No, sir, it was due last week, 1 week ago.
Mr. Perry. So it is not in yet?
Ms. Feinberg. That is correct. It is supposed to be an
update on where the railroads are in implementation.
Mr. Perry. I understand. But Congress also approved that,
gave 180 days. Everybody agreed. There was a negotiation.
Ms. Feinberg. But Congress has asked for it to now include
our enforcement strategy and railroad-by-railroad information.
Mr. Perry. Things changes, right? Things change. So who
should we fine at the FRA when they are not timely?
Ms. Feinberg. You can feel free to hold me accountable for
the fact that the report is a week late.
Mr. Perry. What should the fine be?
Ms. Feinberg. I will leave that to you.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Perry.
Mr. Sires.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, I travel on the Northeast Corridor constantly
back and forth, and I am still trying to get this idea with the
spectrum, how we end up with two. And places like Chicago, they
only have 1 and more than 11 companies use it. I just don't
understand why we just can't come up with one system.
Now we have to worry where one is going to interfere with
the other? To me, it just doesn't make sense when other parts
of the country use one system. Could somebody address that? How
did we get to this? How did we get to this point?
Mr. Lonegro. I think it goes back to the conversation we
had a few minutes ago where the ACSES system for Amtrak was
really developed for passenger rail, and specifically for high-
speed passenger rail. There is a certain way that passenger
railroads run their operation, and they utilize certain
technologies to run their trains, dispatch their trains, and
the freight railroads have, literally, a different way of
running the railroad. And so those two systems----
Mr. Sires. But is this a company not making a concession to
the other or Amtrak not making a concession to you? I mean, I
don't understand it.
Mr. Lonegro. Well, we are all making concessions, candidly.
Mr. Sires. Well, how did we end up with two if we are all
making concessions?
Mr. Lonegro. The systems are separate. They rely on
communications as a fundamental aspect. And so what we are
really doing is the data transmission is using two radios,
which are going to use two separate but close pieces of
spectrum, and the closer those pieces of spectrum are the more
interference there can be. But I would say that we are actively
working between Amtrak, the Northeast commuters, as well as the
FCC to solve that problem, and we believe we have line of sight
to that. I don't know if Mr. Mathias would like to comment on
that.
Mr. Sires. The FRA states that 40 percent of all accidents
are a result of human performance failures. The railroads,
however, claim that PTC would only prevent 4 percent of all
accidents, inferring that the cost outweighs the benefits. How
did we come up with 4 percent?
Mr. Lonegro. We looked at all of the accidents over, I
believe it was either a 10- or a 12-year period, all accidents.
Right? And I am not sure that the FRA looked at all accidents.
They may have looked at a subset of all accidents.
Accidents are generally caused by a couple of things,
either the conditions or the behaviors. Right? The conditions
could be track related, signal related, how the car operates or
some of the components on that, and the same on the locomotive
side, and then you have behavioral based. So is there something
that happened in the cab of the locomotive, the human factor
side of things.
We looked at the entire portfolio of accidents and did the
math on things that we thought were PTC preventable and were
not, and came up with that 4 percent. At CSX it is actually
only 2 percent.
Mr. Sires. Two percent?
Mr. Lonegro. Yes, sir, 2 percent of all accidents PTC
preventable.
Mr. Sires. So, in other words, in your eyes you don't think
it is worth it to make this investment?
Mr. Lonegro. You know, I think we are well past that
conversation, to be honest with you, Member. We have already
spent $1.2 billion on it. We have good line of sight to
completion of the hardware by 2018 and full deployment by 2020.
I think we are well past that conversation.
Mr. Sires. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Mr. Hardy, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Feinberg, I read your testimony clear through, and it
states in your testimony it seems that FRA is ready to act,
directing penalties on PTC if not implemented. Also you state
that FRA is ready to act in the interim to bring railroads into
safety compliance. You suggest that Congress should authorize
FRA to require railroads to use alternative safety technology
on specified lines. You also say, and I quote: ``These
requirements will likely be costly to railroads.'' Can you
share with me your ideas on this alternative technology?
Ms. Feinberg. Sir, what I was referring to was what I would
refer to as the safety gap that will exist between January 1,
2016, so the day after the deadline, and when PTC is actually
implemented by each railroad, and what, if anything, should be
done to raise the bar on safety during that gap.
So whether it is additional communication between
crewmembers, an additional person in the cab, we have not made
final determinations. I think they would be railroad-by-
railroad specific. But it would be how do you increase safety
between the date of the deadline that is missed and when PTC is
actually implemented.
Mr. Hardy. In your testimony you stated that these will be
costly to railroads. So you have clearly run the numbers on how
much it will cost. Can you share with me those calculations or
how you come to that point with that statement?
Ms. Feinberg. We just frequently hear from railroads that
items like additional crewmembers are quite costly. That is
based on that assertion.
Mr. Hardy. OK.
Mr. Orseno, with safety being paramount, I would like you
to delve into the costs a little more. In your testimony that
the commuter and the freight rail industries will have spent
over billions of dollars on PTC implementation, although
progress has been substantial, but it remains to be done before
PTC can be safely implemented nationwide, companies, on how
much money have they spent out of pocket, do you believe these
costs will be passed down to consumers, which is naturally what
happens, but I just want to hear from you.
Mr. Orseno. In my opinion, yes, they would be passed down
to consumers. When we raise our fares in order to cover PTC
costs and other items, we have to pass those costs on, and we
only have X amount of State and Federal funding.
The challenge that we have on the commuter rail side is the
higher you raise the fares, the less likely you are going to
retain all of your ridership. At a time when we want to get
more people on our trains and off the roads, that is a big
challenge for us. So it is a very difficult balancing act to
still be able to provide safe, valuable service for our
customers.
Mr. Hardy. Do you believe that we have done all that we can
as a committee, as Congress, to help move this process forward?
Do you feel like you are being penalized for our lack of action
or inaction or FRA's actions or inactions? I would like to hear
your opinion on that also.
Mr. Orseno. That is a challenging question.
Mr. Hardy. Yes, it is.
Mr. Orseno. The answer is this is a very expensive
proposition for all railroads, especially commuter railroads
where we don't have the type of funding that we need. I believe
that Congress needs to fund the PTC project. It is important.
It is important for the safety of our customers, our employees,
and the communities we operate through. So it is very important
to me that the Federal Government supply some funding for it.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you.
Mr. Lonegro, you made the statement that the immediate
impact of the deadline will be that RSIA [Rail Safety
Improvement Act] has the potential of making certain rail
operations illegal. Can you discuss these ramifications a
little bit more, if you would, please?
Mr. Lonegro. Yes, sir. We are in a legal dilemma, as I
mentioned in the opening testimony. We have a law that requires
PTC to be implemented on lines that carry passengers and lines
that carry certain commodities, TIH and PIH commodities. And so
the transport of those after January the 1st of 2016 would run
in contravention to the Rail Safety Improvement Act. Yet we
also have a common carrier obligation that requires us to haul
freight that is tendered on reasonable requests and at
reasonable terms and conditions.
And so we are in a situation of which law do we violate.
And we have that same conundrum on the passenger side. I mean,
Amtrak runs over us, a law that is 40, 45 years old, and so we
are required to allow Amtrak to run as well as a number of
other commuters, including Mr. Orseno.
And we also have this obligation under the Rail Safety
Improvement Act which requires us to complete PTC on those same
lines. And so if we are not able to meet it on those lines, do
we need to tell Mr. Orseno that he can't run?
I mean, these are the challenges that many, many lawyers
right now are trying to resolve, and we don't have the answer
to that quite yet.
Mr. Hardy. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Hardy.
Ms. Esty, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Esty. Thank you, Chairman Denham, and thank you for,
remarkably gracious Ranking Member Capuano, for waiting so
long. I want to thank both of you for holding today's hearing.
This subcommittee's work is extremely important to the
thousands of folks in my district in Connecticut who ride these
rails every day and to the businesses who rely on the freight
service, as well, in northwest and central Connecticut. And I
hear from a lot of those commuters that they are very concerned
about rail safety, as you can imagine, with the last 2 years.
And we have been talking about, ever since the fatal
collision in 1969, we have been talking about Positive Train
Control. And as you can sense from today's hearing, there is
increasing impatience and concern about how long that is
taking.
Now, I think we really need to get down to brass tacks of
what are the carrots and sticks? What are the incentives at
this time, recognizing the difficulty with spectrum, the
difficulty with interoperability, and with the budget
challenges, what do we do now to move this forward as
expeditiously and safely as possible? And that is where I would
like to start from. The past is the past. We are here now. We
are in June of 2015. How do we get this moving forward to keep
people safe?
So first, Acting Administrator Feinberg, again, thank you
for your patience and your transparency and your exceptional
availability to us on the committee. We value that quite a lot.
In your testimony, you noted that you think FRA needs the
authority, given the situation right now, over PTC control
systems, to test them, as well as to provide for interim safety
measures when they do not meet that deadline, which it is all
very clear most of them will not be meeting that deadline.
Could you expand and say what should we be doing in this
committee, what should this committee of jurisdiction be doing
to give FRA authority, and why?
Ms. Feinberg. Thank you for the question.
I think the most important thing that we can do starting
now and going forward is to provide railroads with the
resources that they need to implement PTC. So this
administration has asked, the FRA has asked for significant
resources for the commuter railroads so that they can implement
PTC. I think that is the most important thing that can happen.
But additionally, in terms of our authority, the statute is
quite narrow. And so, as others have discussed, we really do
run into a problem on January 1 where the law is the law, and
despite the preferences of railroads, I can't give waivers, I
can't base waivers on good faith, I can't extend the deadline,
and I won't extend the deadline. And so we have to figure out
how to move forward past January 1 to make sure that
passengers, folks who live near and along rail are safe.
And so I am happy to continue to work with the Congress on
that, but the most important thing is to make sure that we are
providing resources so that we can actually bring this
technology online quickly.
Ms. Esty. A quick followup question. Do you believe that
the railroads that fail to meet that deadline, and I am asking
now under current law, will be subjected to increased tort
liability? Because the insurance issues were already raised
here today. That is obviously a very, very big stick that,
again, I think this committee needs to understand what is the
legal opinion of FRA about that as well as the railroads.
Ms. Feinberg. The opinion of the FRA--look, I don't want to
give the railroads legal advice, and I am probably the only
person in this room who is not a lawyer, but we are certainly
hearing from the railroads that they absolutely believe that
they are increased liability as of January 1, and we would--we
agree with them.
Ms. Esty. Well, I think we need to get to work on that
because that is not in anybody's interest as we move forward.
Mr. Mathias, good to see you. We went to college together.
So thank you for being here. I am hearing from the railroads,
and particularly in the Northeast Corridor, we hear other
Members reference this, the difficulty about spectrum. What is
it from your perspective, from the FCC's perspective, that we
can do, particularly in a very congested space--and that is
spectrum space, as well as physical space--that we should be
doing to expedite the safety in the Northeast Corridor, the
most heavily trafficked area in the country?
Mr. Mathias. Thank you. And it is good to see you too.
Thank you for your question.
We have an increasingly good news story in the Northeast
Corridor with regard to spectrum. It is my understanding that
currently Amtrak has the spectrum it needs to deploy, which
would be relevant for Connecticut. In addition, we currently
have in front of us a proposed transaction that would provide
the MTA additional spectrum to provide coverage between New
York and New Haven, which would fill a gap in their spectrum
coverage, and we also understand that the MBTA has the spectrum
that we need.
So what our job will be is to ensure that we are working as
quickly as we can and are fully engaged to make sure that those
transactions are completed as quickly as possible as soon as we
have the information and to be ready in case something changes.
Ms. Esty. Thank you very much.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. OK. Let's go right to Mr. Mathias. You were
talking about the Connecticut connection, putting PTC in from
Boston to New Haven. Isn't that most of what Amtrak doesn't
own?
Mr. Mathias. No, sir. The Amtrak has spectrum----
Mr. Mica. But that is where it was installed. It is
installed there, isn't it? Last hearing you gave us a map, and
that one was--that was pretty much complete.
Mr. Mathias. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. Right. But that is really mostly under a private
operation. Amtrak runs trains over it. They don't own that part
of the line. I am telling you that they don't own it. I know.
OK? All right. Just interesting that they could get it done.
OK.
Let's go to the Acting Administrator. Here she is back
asking for money again. And last question I asked, how many
RRIF loans had been given since 2012, and first I got an answer
of until last year two, and then add one, we got to three. Is
it still three RRIF loans since 2012?
Ms. Feinberg. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. OK. How many of those were for PTC?
Ms. Feinberg. One.
Mr. Mica. One. OK. You could say 33 percent of them. It
sounds more impressive.
Ms. Feinberg. Good idea.
Mr. Mica. Let's go back to our communications guy. There
was an 11,000 backlog you took care of. At one time I thought
there were as many as 20,000 applications.
Mr. Mathias. We understand from the railroads that their
total deployment would be approximately 30,000----
Mr. Mica. What is your number of applications approved and
what is your backlog at this point?
Mr. Mathias. We have had before us for review 8,300. We
have no backlog today.
Mr. Mica. No backlog. They are all approved. And you are
expecting more. In the past, and I gave you credit, before your
average processing was about 2,000 a year. Is that correct or
did I lie?
Mr. Mathias. I think we are able to do more.
Mr. Mica. OK. Where is my guy from--OK, Metrolink. When was
the accident at Metrolink?
Mr. Kerwin. 2008 was the Chatsworth.
Mr. Mica. 2007?
Mr. Kerwin. 2008.
Mr. Mica. 2008. Mr. Oberstar, we did the bill. You still
don't have Positive Train Control in all of Metrolink service,
or do you?
Mr. Kerwin. We have our entire system of Metrolink-owned
lines in service.
Mr. Mica. By what?
Mr. Kerwin. Metrolink-owned lines are all in service.
Mr. Mica. With Positive Train Control.
Mr. Kerwin. With Positive Train Control.
Mr. Mica. OK. What is missing then?
Mr. Kerwin. The lines that we run on with our freight
partners are not currently PTC operational with our trains.
Mr. Mica. But Ms. Feinberg, we will go back to here, she
just testified she is going to hammer those freight people and
the hammer is coming down the end of the year. Right? Is that
what you said? I heard you in the beginning.
Ms. Feinberg. I said we would enforce the deadline.
Mr. Mica. You are going to enforce it, right. Well, that is
kind of interesting because then I see you submit a budget that
proposes a 6-year schedule, 2016, of funding commuter railroads
to implement PTC. So is it going to take another 6 years?
Last I checked, there are not a lot of passengers on
freight trains. Isn't that right? I mean, most of them I know
they are carrying freight not people. But I would think people
would be pretty important. Most of those people that were
killed out there in that incident were people. It might have
disrupted some freight traffic, but it was people. So is this
the new policy: On people and commuters we are going to take 6
years, but we are going to hammer those freight people, aren't
we?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, no. So, first of all, we will enforce
the deadline against all the railroads, not just the freights.
Mr. Mica. OK. But then we have a plan to go forward with--
--
Ms. Feinberg. If they can implement it sooner, that would
be great. Happy to use those resources for other items.
Mr. Mica. Cameras. Metrolink, you got them? Are there
cameras in the cabs?
Mr. Kerwin. Yes.
Mr. Mica. All of them?
Mr. Kerwin. We have all inward facing cameras in all of our
cabs.
Mr. Mica. OK. Because that has been a recommendation of
NTSB for some time since that accident, and I cited all the
other times back to 1973, and they weren't implemented in most
instances.
Mr. Kerwin. Ours have been implemented since 2009.
Mr. Mica. OK. Last thing. Is TIFIA [Transportation
Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act] eligible for use of
installation of Positive Train Control? Does anybody know?
Ms. Feinberg. TIFIA, not RRIF?
Mr. Mica. Yes.
Do we know? Does anybody know? Staff know or anybody? Come
on. Some of you guys are brilliant on the other side. You don't
know? It is? OK.
They think it is. So that is a mechanism for funding. But
let me tell you the last thing before I conclude. I have 7
seconds.
I was flying up here and I met a guy on a plane. I didn't
know him from Adam's house cat.
``What are you doing on the plane, Mr. Mica?''
``Well, I am coming back to DC.''
I said, ``Why are you coming back to DC?''
He says, ``Well, I am with some kind of a project, and we
finance projects.'' And he says, ``It took us between 60 and 90
days to get approval for financing under TIFIA, the private
sector.''
I said, ``Well, what are you doing here?''
He says, ``It has taken us a year.'' He says, ``These guys
are screwing around with the paperwork for a year.''
So you can go out and get private sector financing while
they screw around in DOT, and here is a mechanism that may be
available and is available, and you have huge capacity at RRIF,
and both of them don't work.
Did you want to respond on your own time, because I am
over?
Ms. Feinberg. Sure. I believe that under Secretary Foxx
both of those programs have moved along much faster than they
have previously. There is always room for improvement.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Chairman, I have got to go to the medical
center.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Mica.
And the previous chairman did say that the witness' time
was also the Member's time today.
Ms. Hahn, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing.
Thank you to my colleague Mr. Capuano for yielding to the
rest of the committee.
First of all, I want to commend Metrolink, the second-
largest rail system by size in the country, for the outstanding
work that they have done in meeting our PTC deadline. I like it
that you worked closely with your railroad partners, BNSF,
Union Pacific, Amtrak, to make sure that their technologies
were interoperable and worked hard to acquire the funds needed
to fund the implementation of your system. I want to point out
that 85 percent of the funds that Metrolink used to fund the
rollout were from the State of California and local sources,
only 15 percent were Federal.
PTC is clearly a top priority for me, and it really is for
the American people. I think when the American people hear that
we can prevent train accidents and deaths of people by the
implementation of PTC, they are also very frustrated that many
railroads are not going to be meeting our deadline. But I will
say, I would like to go on record and agree to disagree with
Chairman Denham, that I don't think we should take money from
the California High-Speed Rail Authority to pay for PTC. The
California High-Speed Rail Authority has it within their budget
to make sure that there is PTC on the California high-speed
rail project. We need to find money for both.
I am going to ask Mr. Mathias my first question, and we
have heard from testimony a major part of the process to
implement PTC is acquiring the spectrum. According to
Metrolink, the process of acquiring spectrum has been trying
and prolonged. It purchased the license for spectrum 5 years
ago, and before they can use it, they need FCC's approval. In
order to meet the deadline, Metrolink is currently leasing
spectrum at the rate of $50,000 per year from freight railroads
while awaiting the approval.
I think everyone is going to want to know, why has it taken
5 years to approve the use of spectrum? Is this normal? And
shouldn't we have, in light of the recent accidents and in
light of this urgency to prevent future accidents, shouldn't
there be an expedited process for approval for projects that
deal with our public safety?
Mr. Mathias. Thank you for that good question, and I can
appreciate your concern. We are very glad that Metrolink
actually has been able to negotiate a lease and that they will
be able to have spectrum necessary to provide the PTC service.
We understand their concern and frustration that the
spectrum that they had intended to purchase has taken so long
to acquire. Unfortunately, it has been mired in Federal
litigation, as well as in a closed proceeding at the Federal
Communications Commission, so unfortunately I can't provide
details.
But what we are trying to do is as much as we can to keep
that process moving. We have taken the extraordinary step of
taking the spectrum that they wish to acquire out of our closed
proceeding so that we can move forward. They have several
waiver requests that they need that would facilitate their use
of the spectrum that are pending before us. We understand they
need to update those. We look forward to receiving that
information.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. But, again, I think the American
people are not going to be very sympathetic with excuses for
the FCC not approving spectrum applications as quickly as
possible. And I sort of agree with my colleague Ms. Brown on it
is sort of difficult to be fining and enforcing the deadline
when some of our own agencies are not moving as quickly as most
of us would like. So I am just going to say that.
OK. Mr. Kerwin, you are a model, as I said. I am very proud
of Metrolink in California. Maybe since you have been able to
meet the deadline and you have been able to jump over obstacles
and through the hoops to actually make this happen, what advice
would you give other commuter rail lines in this country who
are trying to meet the deadline by the end of the year?
Mr. Kerwin. Sure. Thank you for that question.
I would like to actually thank Mr. Lonegro for his shout-
out to our project director, Darrell Maxey, who has been just
diligent in pushing this project forward. That sentiment has
come all the way from the top ranks of Metrolink. The board,
our grantors have made a very, very strong commitment to this
project. So the funding that they provided has been really the
crucial element in getting this project going, along with that
adamant support from our board to really get this project
started.
So we started early and made a very concerted effort,
around the clock been working very hard at it for many years.
So it is hard to give--I wouldn't say there is a silver bullet
for other commuter railroads to accomplish it. It has been a
very challenging process. So we do sympathize with the many
challenges which we have also encountered.
So I would say that the funding is a key element and having
a close working relationship with your freight partners that
you operate with, because really that was the other key element
for us, was the strong support that we had from our freight
partners.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you. And, again, you have been a model for
the country, and we applaud you.
Mr. Denham. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I
had to be at another hearing until just a few minutes ago.
But, Ms. Feinberg, maybe you have covered this, but let me
ask you this. It has taken these railroads several years to get
to the point where they are now, and apparently there is still
a pretty good ways to go. And I am wondering, do you have any
estimate of how long it is going to take your agency to certify
a railroad after this process?
Ms. Feinberg. So the step is first a safety plan is
submitted to us. So it is basically the railroad's plan for how
they will implement PTC and how they will ensure that the
system is working. We have received one of those and have
turned it back around to the railroad.
They take a while to go through because you are not only
reading the plan, but you are in close consultation with the
railroad talking through it, offering edits and changes to make
sure that the system is going to work. So it takes a while.
But we feel pretty confident that as they roll in, we will
be able to staff up and turn them around in the kinds of time
periods that we have laid out for the railroads. But as of now,
we have just received one.
Mr. Duncan. Are you satisfied with the progress that the
railroads have made thus far?
Ms. Feinberg. I am not satisfied. I would not be satisfied
unless the deadline were going to be met.
Mr. Duncan. My dad told me years ago, and I don't remember
what he was talking about at the time, but he said everything
looks easy from a distance.
And I was reading over Mr. Lonegro's testimony. Just for
CSX it says the tasks are still monumental. And it said CSX has
to do ``a complete airborne-laser imaging survey of our entire
21,000-mile network'' to have ``all assets mapped to within 7
feet of their precise location, installation of 5,202 wayside
units, replacing signals along 7,500 miles of track, installing
1,285 base stations, equipping 3,900 locomotives, training
16,000 employees.'' I mean, these tasks, monumental is being
conservative when you say that.
And, Mr. Lonegro, tell me about the safety record of CSX so
far.
Mr. Lonegro. We have been an industry leader for the last 2
or 3 years in safety, sir, and the whole industry, if you go
back and look at especially the train accident statistics, has
seen significant, 40 to 50 percent reductions in train
accidents since the 2000 time period.
Safety is a core value of CSX. Safety is a way of life. It
is the first core value that we have, and it is very similar at
every other railroad. So, I mean, every day we live and breathe
safety, whether it is to improve conditions along the railroad,
the track infrastructure, the signaling infrastructure, the
equipment side of the house, cars, locomotives, and the human
factor side of the house, the training efforts that we do.
We have a technology called ERAD [Event Recorder Automated
Download], which is a virtual road foreman that looks exactly
how that train was handled to figure out whether there are any
anomalies in that train handling and then have a coaching
session with that employee. If they were over speed, right, we
have a conversation with them. If they happen to breach a red
signal, they are taken out of service and decertified.
We have lots of things that we are doing. We are starting
down the inward facing camera path a la Metrolink to understand
the exact behaviors in the cab that contribute to accidents.
So I would say we are doing an awful lot on safety, sir.
Mr. Duncan. Well, the committee staff gave me a statistic a
few minutes ago, and they said that the freight rail system is
99.995 percent safe based on the number of trips that are
taken. I don't know, that seems to me to be a phenomenal safety
record. My staffer Don Walker told me a short time ago that the
Wall Street Journal said that 2014 was the safest year ever for
the rail industry.
Now, I mean, everybody has tremendous sympathy for these
families that lost loved ones in the Amtrak accident, but, my
goodness, now we are going to be spending billions, already
have spent billions and going to be spending billions more to
try to make something that is already one of the safest things
in the entire world. And I am thinking that we would be far
better off to spend those billions in many, many other ways,
cancer research and everything else.
My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Capuano.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you for being so gracious with your time.
Mr. Capuano. Gracious. Get that Pete? Gracious.
Mr. DeFazio. Yeah. Twice.
Mr. Capuano. I want to thank the panel too.
Ms. Feinberg, we are all here today because we think PTC
can save lives. I think everybody agrees with that. If you are
a week or two or a month late with a report, does anybody die?
Ms. Feinberg. No, sir.
Mr. Capuano. Are there any major property losses?
Ms. Feinberg. No, sir.
Mr. Capuano. OK. If one of the major railroads came to you
and said, ``We are not going to make December 31, but we are
going to make January 15, we are going to make February 1,''
are you likely to be imposing big fines on somebody who is
going to be a few weeks or a month late?
Ms. Feinberg. Highly unlikely.
Mr. Capuano. I didn't think so.
Mr. Kerwin, it cost roughly $200 million, a little over
$200 million to institute the PTC on your system. Is that
right?
Mr. Kerwin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Capuano. How much did the Chatsworth accident cost?
Mr. Kerwin. In excess of that amount, I would say.
Mr. Capuano. So in hindsight, knowing what that accident
cost versus what the system cost, the system has already paid
for itself.
Mr. Kerwin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Capuano. If it has paid for itself on your line, do you
think it is a reasonable thing to say that it would pay for
itself on any other line in avoided accidents?
Mr. Kerwin. Yes, I would agree with that.
Mr. Capuano. I think so too.
I guess nobody here believes--nobody wants any fines. There
is no reason to have fines. We all understand that, Mr. Orseno.
We have a commuter rail system too. We get that. But at the
same time, we are sitting here 7 years later with some of the
major railroads having done virtually nothing. How would you
suggest, let's assume that we could come together as a
Congress--by the way, Ms. Feinberg, who set this December 31
deadline?
Ms. Feinberg. The Congress.
Mr. Capuano. And are you empowered to ignore that?
Ms. Feinberg. No.
Mr. Capuano. Are you empowered to change that deadline?
Ms. Feinberg. No.
Mr. Capuano. So it is only us?
Ms. Feinberg. Correct.
Mr. Capuano. OK. I think that any reasonable person here
understands the deadline is not going to be met. Any reasonable
person understands the deadline has to be extended. We are not
looking to do fines.
Now, if we don't, I would not ask Ms. Feinberg or anyone
else to ignore the law. I would hope that Congress can come
together and do this. At the same time, once we do it, how do
we avoid a bad actor from simply ignoring it again for any
reasonable period of time, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years,
without a stick?
Mr. Orseno.
And I don't want the fines, but how do I do it any other
way?
Mr. Orseno. Well, I think, as was brought up here today on
many occasions, I believe that at the onset from the 2008 Rail
Safety Improvement Act, that was a date that was agreed upon. I
think once we got into the significant challenges that it----
Mr. Capuano. I understand how we are today. Let's assume
today, right now, if I said to you write a law that says in
some period of time, some reasonable period of time, 2, 3, 5
years, pick a timeframe, we are going to have this done, how do
I then enforce it if I don't have fines?
Mr. Orseno. Well, I think we would need to look at it at
that time. But I think the key issue is right now we aren't
going to meet the deadline. And it is not from lack of effort.
If it was from lack of effort----
Mr. Capuano. I respect that. But the bottom line is I don't
know any other way to enforce it amongst bad actors. Good
actors don't need an enforcement, bad actors do, which is why
fines are in place. My presumption is you have contracts with
suppliers that give them fines if they don't meet their
requirements. We have to have the same thing if we really think
that PTC is important.
By the way, I also fully agree that we should--the Federal
Government should be participating in paying for this. But we
are having that argument. You know the arguments we are having
here. I am with you, but I need 217 other Members to agree with
that. In the meantime, we can't do anything.
So I think that it is pretty clear to me that we have to do
something, but to pretend that we do nothing or to pretend that
somehow goodness will simply overcome the lack of goodness is
ridiculous and unenforceable. We need to come up with a
reasonable timeframe. We need to allow Ms. Feinberg to enforce
the law, whatever it might be. I don't expect you to break the
law. I also don't want to fine anybody. So we have to act.
And we can do it all day long, we can play games, we can
dance around, we can point fingers, we can show what happened 5
years ago, 7 years ago, 10 years ago. But since 1969, according
to the NTSB, according to their own figures, preventable
accidents have killed 296 people and it injured 6,732. And I
don't know how much money has been lost because no one has put
that number together.
If the cap, the $200 million cap, which, by the way, would
have cost Metrolink more if it wasn't for the cap, it is hard
to tell, but it seems to me just rough numbers, it looks like
the cap probably would have cost--even with the cap, it would
have been about $20 billion that these accidents would have
cost.
This is a doable action, and it is an action that pays for
itself as proof positive by Metrolink. Help us work with you to
get it done.
And by the way, Mr. Mathias, earlier you said you had 8,500
poles agreed to, but that doesn't count the 11,000 that you did
previously. It is my understanding you are closer to 20,000
poles across the country that have been approved. Now, that
20,000 is about out of 30,000, 35,000 that they will need. So
we have already got two-thirds of the locations approved and
ready to go. Is that right?
Mr. Mathias. Correct.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
Mr. Denham. Thank you, Mr. Capuano.
Mr. Barletta.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Safety is my first priority, there is no question, and
Positive Train Control is a necessary tool to improve safety.
But the fact of the matter is that most railroads will not have
the technology installed by the December 31, 2015, deadline.
Today I am wondering what happens on January 1, 2016, if the
deadline remains.
Mr. Lonegro, today Ms. Feinberg again committed to hold the
railroads accountable for not meeting the PTC deadline,
including potential fines and restrictions of service. If the
deadline is not extended, what actions will the railroads
likely take? I want to know what is going to happen on January
1.
Mr. Lonegro. Well, sir, there is one way to be compliant
with the deadline, and that is not to move TIH/PIH commodities
or passengers, which is an untenable situation if you are a
passenger agency or a TIH/PIH shipper. So the railroads right
now are in a very difficult place with a deadline that can only
be congressionally moved.
So we again have a lot of folks that are evaluating how we
look at the common carrier obligation, how we look at the PTC
mandate to, in essence, figure out is there a way to navigate
through breaking the law on one hand or breaking the law on the
other hand.
And we have a very similar situation with Amtrak and the
commuter agencies where we are required to move the passengers
or allow them to move their passengers over our lines. And
again, we have a PTC mandate and we have a passenger
requirement, and I hate to say which--we are being backed into
a corner in terms of which law should we violate. And it may be
that the path forward really does involve cessation of service.
But we are all looking at that. We are all evaluating. You
heard a Member earlier talk about increased tort liability. We
certainly worry about that as well.
So it is an untenable situation, as I mentioned in my
opening statement.
Mr. Barletta. Mr. Orseno, in your testimony you mention
concerns within the APTA Rail Conference about the ability of
commuter rail to operate past the PTC deadline as it relates to
liability and coverage. Can you further describe what liability
and coverage issues would prevent commuter rail that doesn't
meet the PTC deadline from operating?
Mr. Orseno. Well, when we were at the conference a question
was raised on whether we can operate or individual agencies can
operate past the deadline because you would be operating
outside the confines of the law and there may be restrictions
in some of the liability coverages. And all the commuter
railroads are now going back with their risk and legal teams to
take a look and see if that is the case.
Mr. Barletta. You have already said that Metra won't make
the December 31, 2015, deadline, and in Pennsylvania, SEPTA
will not make the deadline either. If the worst-case scenario
occurs and commuter rail does not receive any flexibility on
the PTC deadline, how would commuters who rely on Metra or
other commuter rail like SEPTA be impacted by operation
changes?
Mr. Orseno. That would depend on to the degree of what
actually happens. If railroads were forced to close down
because of liability reasons and insurance reasons, for us
alone that would put 300,000 passengers on the roads already
that are congested, and that wouldn't be a good solution.
Mr. Barletta. In Pennsylvania, SEPTA is furthest behind in
the on board vehicle/locomotive system installations. You also
cited in your testimony that one of the biggest PTC challenges
is onboard software, and that final production release date is
not yet known. Can you tell us why this has been such a
challenge?
Mr. Orseno. I don't have that technical knowledge, but I
believe Mr. Lonegro does.
Mr. Lonegro. PTC, in the very beginning, was somewhat
theoretical in the way that the regulation was published in
terms of what it had to accomplish and how it had to accomplish
that. And so we took a system that was much smaller, much less
complicated, and much less mature, and through the period of
the last 7 years are really working to the point where it can
comply with all of the regulations and the functionality that
has been required.
I would tell you that from a software perspective, we are
getting closer, meaning, arguably, the end of the year we could
have a piece of software that is very, very close. At the same
time, we have committed to not implement software that has any
critical defects or severe defects, but yet we are willing to
deploy software with medium or minor defects, right.
So we are not really trying to get to perfect necessarily,
but we are making sure that it can provide all the
functionality and doesn't create a situation where a safety
problem is introduced.
Just in the last month or so, we have found a safety-
critical defect in the onboard software which has to be
corrected, has to be retested, has to be taken back to the
field, and the same holds true for the back-office software. So
these are people in the supplier community, this is their
business, right, this is what they do for a living, and if they
are unable to tackle the technical challenge that has been put
in front of all of us, that gives you some understanding of the
complexity of the challenge that we have because that is just
one piece of the puzzle.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And I would like to recognize Ms.
Brown. If you will indulge me just for a second, though, I am
going to turn it over to Mr. Rokita, but I did want to enter
one piece of information for the record, without objection.
This was prepared in association with the California High-Speed
Rail Association. This is their June 2009 request for funding.
[The ``San Francisco/Silicon Valley Corridor Investment
Strategy for High-Speed Rail'' can be found on page 108.]
Mr. Denham. On their request, they request $230 million
from the ARRA Investment Strategy from those funds that have
been allocated to California, $230 million. Here is a map here
where it shows exactly where those improvements would be.
Can you zoom that in? Move it up.
This corridor here, Positive Train Control, $230 million.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority thinks that it can do
it. They have requested it. This is in California. We want to
have the safety improvements there. Here is a good funding
source to do that.
Ms. Feinberg. Mr. Chairman, understood. My staff passed me
a note during the hearing that states that ARRA high-speed rail
funding has been at $328 million. So we will follow up with you
and look at those two numbers together and respond.
Mr. Denham. Thank you. And I will have a staff member bring
that down just for your record as we continue this ongoing
exchange.
And with that, I would like to recognize Ms. Brown for our
second round of questioning.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but would you indulge
me for a minute, because when I was out of the room, Mr. Mica
said that Amtrak had not implemented Positive Train Control
from New Haven to Boston. Not only did they implement it, it
was the first in the country, and I want to submit that for the
record.
Mr. Denham. Without objection.
Ms. Brown. Thank you.
Now, Metrolink, who I visited with several times in
California, and I just want to mention that you had the support
of the State, the local recovery money. And funding is the
issue for all of the commuter lines, and let's don't sit here
and act like it is not, and a lot of the local resources are
not available for the other lines.
With that, I want to go on to Frank, because you and I want
to say all those great things about CSX, but you are the one
that is here representing the Class I railroad, and they said
that there are some positive players and there are some who are
not. Would you give us an update, because we need an extension.
The idea that we are going to start fining people, and then
where is that money going? Against this reduction? I want the
money to go into the system. So would you tell us who are these
negative players that they are talking about?
Mr. Lonegro. Thank you, Member Brown.
There are no bad actors here. This technology is very
difficult to implement. The scale proposition that we each have
is very challenging, as one of the Members mentioned earlier in
terms of the scale of the CSX deployment. For at least the
major U.S. Class I's, the scale is about the same, right, we
all have that major challenge.
The Canadian railroads have a slightly smaller footprint
because they don't run as much in the United States and there
is no PTC mandate in Canada, so their footprint is slightly
smaller. So at least in the Class I world, there are no bad
actors. We are all going about this with all----
Ms. Brown. That is not what I heard, though. And are you
all working with the commuter lines also?
Mr. Lonegro. We are. Each of us has a different set of
commuters that we work with. So on the CSX footprint, we have
commuters in and around DC, we certainly have commuters in
Chicago, and then we have a full spectrum of commuters on
Amtrak that run, in essence, from Baltimore up to Boston.
So we are in active discussions with them literally all of
the time. We hosted a summit in Chicago at Mr. Orseno's
facility where we brought in the Class I's in the committee
that I chair at the industry level, we brought in all the
commuters and all the short lines, and did our best to try to
help educate folks on the state of the technology, some of the
challenges that we face, so they wouldn't have to face the same
challenges as they deployed on their railroads.
We had, I think, a good dialogue, and Mr. Orseno can
certainly chime in. I think we had a good dialogue. We have
kept that dialogue up. We have another meeting planned for
later in this year where we can reengage and reassess where we
are both individually and collectively.
Ms. Brown. What is the drop-dead amount of time that you
need, Frank?
Mr. Lonegro. As an industry, one of the things that we come
forward with is the ability to be hardware complete by 2018 and
completely rolled out by 2020. And again, I want to make sure
that everybody understands, by the end of 2018, OK, we will
have as an industry 87 percent of the PTC footprint installed
and implemented, meaning we are operational with PTC, and that
is based on current plans, plans that were in place certainly
before the Amtrak tragedy, and then the remaining 13 percent is
really what comes in those last 2 years.
So literally, we are starting to deploy PTC in operational
mode right now, right, and then it ramps up from here fairly
linearly, but ramps up from here through the end of 2020.
Ms. Brown. Ms. Feinberg, how long will it take you all to
inspect? If they complete it in 2018, you have some work to do.
How long will it take you to verify the system?
Ms. Feinberg. Well, they would submit to us a plan, which
we would then turn around to them. Then they would complete
implementation, and I think things would move quite quickly.
The issue there would be that you would be 3 years past the
deadline at that point.
Ms. Brown. Yes, we understand. Everybody understands that.
And we understand that the deadline is not realistic and nobody
is going to meet it, and we have some concerns about the fines.
Mr. Mathias, I have a real concern about your spectrum, and
we have talked a lot about it, even when it is implemented.
What about the local responders? We need to be able to talk to
each other; 9/11, we discovered that we couldn't talk to each
other. And then Katrina, we are still not talking to each
other, and even though they are implementing something and
Amtrak is implementing something. And then you have those local
responders. How come we don't have a dedicated system for
emergencies for this country?
Mr. Mathias. Thank you for that question. I think that
Congress has worked very hard and diligently to create an
infrastructure for a national interoperable public safety
communication system, and I think that is being addressed in
that way, and it is in a separate spectrum band and being
handled in a separate process. But that is on the way.
Ms. Brown. Mr. Mathias, failure is not an option. We really
need to get it done. Thank you.
Mr. Rokita [presiding]. I thank the gentlelady. The
gentlelady's time has expired. I will recognize myself for 5
minutes.
I appreciate everyone's testimony. Mr. Lonegro, I had a
couple of questions for you about the two people in a cab
situation. In our last hearing, NTSB Chairman Hart testified
that having two-person cabs didn't necessarily improve safety,
and he was on a panel with several union members and others. I
wonder what your thoughts are on that kind of statement.
Mr. Lonegro. We have two people in the cab of our
locomotives on all our main line trains. We certainly over, I
would say, the period of years, if not decades in the future,
we will look for the opportunity to reduce the crew size from
two to one if the technology supports that and we are able to
negotiate an appropriate agreement with our labor unions. I
mean, there is a path forward for that, again, when the
technology gets to the point where having two people in the cab
really is no longer necessary.
Mr. Rokita. Roger.
Last hearing Ms. Feinberg stated that the FRA is looking at
having a two-person crew situation as an interim solution along
with probably some additional backstops as well until PTC is
implemented, before deadline, after deadline, whenever that is.
Would you be supportive of that?
Mr. Lonegro. Well, on the freight side I think it is not
necessary. We already have it. I think maybe she was referring
to the commuter side of the house and the Amtrak side of the
house which generally operates with one person in the cab,
although they certainly have crewmembers in the train itself.
But we already have two.
Mr. Rokita. Same question, this is the last question to
you, Mr. Orseno.
Mr. Orseno. We operate our trains with one person in the
cab and two people in the body of the train that are both rules
qualified. Two members up in the cab doesn't necessarily mean
it is a safer situation. There have been many instances where
there have been accidents when two people have been up in the
cab. We don't support that initiative.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Kerwin, same question to you.
Mr. Kerwin. Yeah, we have also evaluated this in the past,
and we will continue to monitor the recommendations from the
FRA and NTSB on this issue.
Mr. Rokita. OK. Thank you.
And back to you, Mr. Lonegro. You said you currently have
two people in a cab on all routes that will require PTC by 2016
or----
Mr. Lonegro. Correct, all main line routes, yes, sir.
Mr. Rokita. OK. So CSX having a two-person crew as an
interim solution until PTC is fully implemented on PTC-required
routes is logistically doable.
Mr. Lonegro. It is already being done.
Mr. Rokita. OK. So then would industry be supportive of
having two-person crews as an interim solution until PTC is
fully implemented, thus, theoretically you would be complying
with the requirements of PTC if you had two people in a cab?
Mr. Lonegro. Well, there is no requirement for two people
in the cab today in the way----
Mr. Rokita. But as an interim solution.
Mr. Lonegro. Well, we already have it, and any time we
would want to go from two to one, we would certainly have to
work with FRA to get approval to do that. So it is just not
necessary, at least with respect to the freight railroads,
given where we are and the steps that we would have to go
through to remove one member of the crew.
Mr. Rokita. OK. Thank you.
And the only thing I would add for the record is that in
addition to any of the other things Ms. Feinberg may or may not
have been blamed for today, she now has apparently sent Mr.
Mica to the hospital, which obligates me to have to go visit
him. Add that to your stack.
And with that, my questions are done, and I don't see any
more questions from Members. So on behalf of Chairman Denham,
let me thank you each for coming again today. We thank all the
members of the audience for their attention today. We move
forward. And with that, hearing no other business before the
committee, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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