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>> we are deeply sorry to the communities in washington and we have admitted all liability and we are generously settling those claims and covering all costs for the state of

washington. >> sen. hassan. >> thank you to our panelists this morning. appreciate you being here. i will start with a question to mr. anderson and mr. david mayer. the obstructive sleep apnea was a cause of two train derailments in september 2016 in january 2017. these derailments involve the injury of over 200 people in the death of one. the ntsb noted the federal rail administration does not require medical screening for safety critical records to guard against sleep apnea. the testing requirements around

this issue is reckless and has clearly led to deaths and injuries in the rail sectors that we obviously need to do something about it. i recently wrote a letter calling on them to remedy this situation. what steps are you taking to protect rail workers and commuters from sleep apnea? >> you are right. at amtrak every 3 years our rule is every one year and we require screening for sleep apnea when diagnosed or taken out of service, we want our engineers to get the proper treatment so we are big believers from an sms standpoint again. safety management system tells us we have to mitigate the risk of sleep apnea and so our program is set up to do that. >> we set up a program, we decided to screen our engineers

on both of our railroads, the train operators in the subway system, thousands of individuals who have been on a very aggressive schedule to do this, to screen thousands of individuals and make sure they have the treatment they require and will be heavily passed through and screen every one of those job titles by the end of may. >> that is good to hear, thank you. is this a problem that merits further attention by the gao? >> it is not an area we looked into but we would be happy to work with you on this issue. sound like an important issue. >> i think it is especially as both of these witnesses answered there's treatment for sleep apnea. it is not an either/or thing but we just need to make sure we are identifying and treating it. mr. anderson, i want to follow up a little bit with you on the

issue of what happens to lines that may not be ptc compliant by the deadline and in my case i'm concerned about vermont which serves constituents of mine in new hampshire and as i understand that are exempted from the requirement. to follow up on some of the other questions you have gotten you testified before the house transportation committee and stated you doubted whether service would continue for areas that did not have it in place by 2018. we heard concerns about how this could impact service that travels through new hampshire and constituents are concerned so is there a way you can address safety concerns but also not take these lines which were exempted under the statute out of service, so critical for people in the state. >> after you expressed that to us after my testimony in the

house and undertake the risk assessment program what steps we could take in the short run to mitigate operations in dark railroads and non-ptc railroads. we have r&d project underway at amtrak to determine whether we can use technologies from europe that don't require as much investment but would give us speed restrictions and signal location and there may be mitigation efforts like slow speeds coming up on switches, requiring the conductor in dark territory tory to ride in the front of the cab. so we are putting it through - candidly what we did in aviation, putting through the same sort of alternative means of compliance because we realize the importance of our

service. it is a really good route for us. it is not one that economically or otherwise we would be motivated to do anything to but as a practical matter after you go to washington and walked down and sit at one of these accident sites it sharpens your focus. >> we are glad for that sharp focus, thank you. >> sen. klobuchar. >> thank you. i will start with you, ms. fleming. as they collect information from commuter railroads and progress implementing, the gao found the f our air is not prioritizing resources to those railroads most likely to miss the deadline which i would

think a risk-based approach would help implementation with specific information the fra needs to collect that would target support where they need it the most. >> they need to consider the recommendation to use the information it collects to apply more for risk-based approach. they are going to be getting significant information, documentation in the next month passed 2020. everything from looking at test waivers, safety plans. to give you a sense of what that means, for now it has taken 10 close to 100 days for test waiver but the safety plans are 500 plus pages and they told us they know may be able to review more than two or three a year so if you do the math it is a heavy lift. also means thinking about what do they do? do they target railroads that carry the most passengers, do

they work with railroads and push them over the hump or do they target their resources to work with railroads that are really struggling and may need more handholding, some assistance so they can tackle these challenges. >> what do you think they should do? >> we will leave that up to them because there are 12 ptc experts and they need to hire a few more. we heard the individualized attention has been great and a lot of railroads could use some guidance, speaks to the fact that again it is more of an informal reactive approach. and it could be inaccurate in formation, they need to have a systematic communication with all the railroads in terms of what are they looking for in

terms of criteria, applications and criteria for the extension, how are they planning to review and approve these. >> mr. anderson, different topic we don't focus much israel safety. you mentioned in 2017 there were 1880 accidents and ptc, we know, is crucial safety technology, didn't know was equipped to handle those incidents at all. we had a few of these in our state. what is amtrak doing to address rail crossing safety? >> we support the federal highway program which allocates $250 million a year for investment in rail crossing safety. this is the single biggest safety issue for rail in america. over 250 to 300 deaths a year

and completely preventable with the right infrastructure investment in rail crossing in the work the fra historically has done has been quite successful in terms of driving down accidents at rail crossing so it is a problem, we just have to put investment in the infrastructure. >> you want to be the investment with that. >> we put that in a religion to grant request, endorsement of the federal highway programs for more investment but what we should do is an analysis of the highest risk to the lowest risk and target investment after investment after investment to drive the number down. >> thanks for your leadership. there's a lot going on and appreciate you stepping up. >> good to see you. >> you used to live in my state. >> i still do. >> he loves our state even when

it is 1 °. coming from a border state and cochair of the canadian group i'm concerned about the level of interoperability of technology with canadian rail operators. do you want to comment on this? >> we don't operate up into canada but interoperability is extremely important to us and we should corridor with amtrak, long island railroad into and inside of penn station and the metro-north territory functions as the northeast corridor that amtrak operates so we are committed to interoperability with ptc online and find a way to continue to operate safely and legally. >> sen. udall.

>> thank you very much for convening this hearing. we all know there have been a number of accidents that could have been prevented if appropriate safety measures have been in place. several of you highlighted that in your testimony. even the best technology cannot prevent human error. i am concerned about the ability of small commuter railroads being able to sustain the cost of full implementation of positive train control. every railroad, commuter or freight, must operate high safety standards to ensure the protection of the public and the protection of railroad employees. ms. fleming, are low risk railroads like the rail runner in new mexico able to operate safely under a risk mitigation plan and without positive train control until they are able to have a system operational?

>> what that risk mitigation strategy would layout is a plan for operating trains that would fall below the threshold that requires positive train control so it wouldn't necessarily provide the same benefit is a fully operated ptc system and allows the railroad to have a grace. co-. basically allows them to operate under the plan but ultimately would still be required to implement ptc at some point. >> in your testimony you outlined the ways including training centralization that amtrak is improving its safety culture. that is essential to the safety of workers and passengers alike. can you clarify the time frames these will be operational. >> i would start by offering a really good workforce,

engineers work hard. i hired an executive vice president and chief safety officer from the aviation industry who reports directly to me. it is a daily process at amtrak which we implement at our new signal suspension policies. we will shortly have completion of our engineer qualification on new routes to address the issues we had in 501 in washington. it is an ongoing process but i will say the sms program with fra has a deadline of november. we plan on filing the sms plan in advance. this is imperative, the single

biggest priority. >> cybersecurity protection measures are important for all businesses and especially transit systems where cyberintrusion could cause death or extreme property destruction. what are the steps, if you cannot provide a complete answer you are welcome to respond. >> i would point out ptc is a layer onto the engineers. remote control capability, limited protection. and cybersecurity rules. and hard with amtrak as we implement ptc solution, the recipient of a grant from the fra, cybersecurity development,

and the amtrak system working very hard to ensure that industry best practices to rule this technology out. >> you agree with most of that. >> a lot of work underway. >> determining which will use and no federal coordination, the technology installed would be interoperable across technology platforms and rail systems. >> the amtrak has been using the system for a number of years. they are based on the amtrak

solution, able to use a third of the amtrak solution off of the shelf, the third needed a major rewrite of the final third is a complete roundup but because we are based on the platform and our engineers and technical staff speak with each other on a daily basis we are confident we will arrive with a solution across different railroads. >> thank you, my time is exhausted. >> let's follow up on sen. udall's question. you used 20 different railroads, three different systems, and is there a

reasonable way to make those three systems work and the same equipment running on tracks, tell us about that. >> it is an amtrak developed system because of speeds that operate, it is called asis. asus is the standard in the core door. the freight railroads that operate in the quarter have to operate with asis which is the amtrak system that has been around for a while but they have something, the standard railroads established around the country so they are dual equipped. in the core door, the acs 64 locomotives are electric, they stay in the quarter. that equipment is dedicated their. in michigan we have a different system.

we run at higher seeds past the rail and that is just for folks that operate on the state of michigan, three roots in michigan, we tend to dedicate locomotives rather than dual equipped. >> you think that creates a long-term ability to deal with different systems on the railroads. >> ultimately you would like simplification and a single piece of equipment, the locomotive breaks down. and the right equipment on its and not be able to. ultimately, we get through the process of dual equipment and to the deadline, which we sort of dedicate different types of equipment to different regions anyway. it will work practically for us

to have the third emt s, don't know if i got the acronym right, and around the united states. >> the back office server, and rockwell collins, to connect airplanes in the sky. >> you know something about that too. >> yeah, i do. amtrak, because interoperability with so many railroads on two systems outside the core door, asis in the core door runs stand alone. the other two we rely on,

rockwell collins, to operate the basic server farm to federate all of the other railroads we operate on and to operate the server for us so the trains and dispatchers all communicate. if i were to suggest one thing for the committee that could accelerate all this, the president of boston, siemens, lab tech and the four of them right here and much of this technology we are talking about depends on software development and hardware development by those oems but those are the biggest critical dependencies right now. >> may be the chairman - a

substantial lack of drawdown by some of the railroads. evaluating in any way with that, but it done by the middle of the year and what clearly, a recipient on funds to relate to them complying with the goal. is there any way you are following up with railroads, with the funds they need. >> the level expenditure is an indicator. the scope of our work, piecing together the puzzle of who got the money. what did they spend it on? we did not do a deep dive spending habits, didn't dive into - it is a function of many different things. it could be when they got the

money. when you meet the funds, the time we had, who spent 80% of the funds could meet the deadline, who has not spent that level of funding. it depends on the types of projects, size and scope of the project we're talking about. some railroads have one project and spend their money quicker than another railroad that has multiple projects, a function of many different things. just a level of effort that it took my team to piece together the funding level. i think it is important. >> thank you. >> thank you to our witnesses being here today to discuss

what is a critical issue. on may 12, 2015, and john jacobs. and in philadelphia, for committee members and mr. chairman, and unanimous consent. >> it is important to enter into the record, the first two paragraphs with committee members. this is written by gilda jacobs, as we do often this week and my husband john and i visited the grave of our daughter rachel. each time i go i cry for her, her 5-year-old son jacob, husband todd and daughter jessica. we lost part of ourselves and our family and the world mourns

for their loss as well. rachel at life and the lives of 7 others were needlessly cut short when the amtrak train they were writing derailed in may 2015 and could have been prevented to be installed and activated on the tracks. and other passengers died and scores of others injured and yet ptc has not been installed or activated on all passenger trains in our country. we can relate to that and share anger. you are new to the position of amtrak. you have expressed that here today as well as the previous hearing. that is particularly insightful

for the airline industry, you focused on safety, the airline industry has enviable record when it comes to safety. you have always given candid assessments, a very candid assessment today. as you know the new touch into this industry and look how ptc has not been moving forward, continually comes forward, we need more time, and why has the railroad industry not done this when we found successes in aviation. >> speaking for passenger railroad and amtrak is what i said in my resorts, we think of ourselves as a freight railroad that carries passengers rather than a world-class passenger railroad modeled after the great passenger railroads around the world. when you take that approach and

the approach on aviation with sms system this at the core of driving and how the sms system and aviation got started was in the mid-90s, a series of accidents from 935297. we made huge investments in technology and sms systems. what we have to do in the industry is stop thinking of ourselves as an extension of the freight railroad industry, they do a good job and their safety record is improving but we carry passengers that that is a much higher standard of care and i don't think the industry has focused on having that same commitment to safety management systems and compliance. >> do you believe they had the time? >> we went through these

exercises with controlled flight. collision avoidance in midair, the big drivers in aviation. all three got solved with technology we installed in the cockpits of all airplanes. >> asking for more time as we heard, the railroads won't be compliant, there seems not to be a focus and there doesn't seem to be a resource issue. barry deweese mentioned many have not - only a few funding recipients have used their ptc funds because they are not spending the money, the time that is a question of commitment. if there is lack of commitment that is a serious serious problem when we have people

dying on our railroads. the industry needs to answer that. >> i want to thank the chairman for his strong words and strongly expressed admonition with the urgency of this system and stated intention to contact appropriate federal authorities about the gao report and i was very disappointed with the secretary of transportation to a letter that i lead regarding answers by the enforcement plan. about positive train control.

industry needs to know, penalties and enforcement, in effect no tolerance for delay that these criteria that are met are not some expanded timeline, interpreted narrowly. and if there is no such warning the prediction made by some member of long island rail. and significantly surprised the levy fines in the event. and the self-fulfilling

prophecy and an additional delay, really alarmed by the gao report which said there was a risk to use your words in commuter railroads. and what you meant by risk, in the present trajectory they will not meet those deadlines with information and data provided in the report. and the mta project leads for ptc implementation announcing the plan is to get it done by the end of the year but metro-north announced you are just 61% complete overall,

leading many, they will be - whether you meet the deadline. and you will meet the 2018 deadline, will have positive train control in operation by then. >> it is as achievable as ms. fleming testified. testified earlier, and on a frequent basis, two years of testing cutting civil speed enforcement on all the metro

health lines. >> it has been proven over the years. >> we are approving it every day we tested it. >> what would prevent you achieving that legal? >> the most important challenges, a lot of talk about office suffering. in the ptc system dependent to communicate and offering. and the ruling about the time it may take. >> it is implement it elsewhere. >> it is very different than elsewhere. >> the same system is applicable. >> we are extremely different

and communication capabilities. >> are you on a path to whatever software issues have arisen? >> it is a major deliverable from the system. and 2 programmers, everything we know how to motivate. >> is that the major obstacle to your completing the system on time? >> yes. if we were testifying a year ago we might talk about hardware. the main obstacle is software and ultimately fra approval. >> the meeting with metro-north on obstacles to meet and overcome obstacles. and additionally necessary, why

we will not meet the end of deadline. i don't want to hear in 6 months. >> looking forward to meeting with you, sen.. >> this system caused - positive train control, is not a new system. it has been around for years and years. software challenges, metro-north, to be around years and years, not like we are discovering a new planet here or a new kind of equipment and in my view and many customers there will be no excuse for metro-north in the 2018 deadline. >> in your testimony you noted

to be as long and difficult process. with your discussion, the unseen circumstances that could delay and extend testing or revenue service, can you elaborate on that? for them the average was 7 months, testing on average two years and until you go through that, and how to work through that. and the tough decision to suspend operations and conduct that testing around the clock. you don't know what your coming up against going through that. each railroad, it is a tricky way of implementation.

>> give some examples on what event delay the implementation, what are some of the unseen circumstances that delay it? >> i am going to go through workpapers a little more and get some good examples for you. >> the fra appears to be taking an approach to ptc that says railroads that have completed all ptc component installation and operate ptc across networks have not been considered fully ptc compliant and must request a ptc extension because of slower progress of other railroads. a railroad that finishes, may need to file for an extension even if they were using ptc for trains and has capability of

communicating. the fra may consider it fully implemented, not when the railroad itself meets the requirements for control. and regardless of who is responsible. >> to be honest, it is unclear. that is the way fra needs to articulate what it plans to do coming january 2019. and there is a satisfactory answer, what does that mean coming january? if you.your eyes and cross your ts, you owe it to the railroads since we are approaching the deadline to answer the questions railroads have. >> do you think there would be benefits if the fra instead of

the railroads, to be quoted early adopters, if they are allowed and reasonably comply with the law in 2018. >> that is something the fra should consider to think about. does that make sense? does that meet your criteria? and at their fingertips, where they can use alternative criteria that is not rst based. what does that look like? what does that mean? fra needs to work with the railroads and help them understand what are examples of that. and there are options at their fingertips, they haven't done a good job articulating it. >> any suggestions how to encourage fra to do that? >> the chairman announced he is planning to send a letter and that may be a good opportunity to seek out clarifications that

we all have. >> barry deweese, in your report you noted two community railroads utilized the improvement financing loans to implement ptc technology. those programs, the program has billions in loan authority provided by congress that could have been used for ptc so why is our rf funding not being used for positive train control? >> it wasn't a question we asked as part of the scope of this effort but we did work in this before in the last few years with a number of factors are at play. the lengthy review process as you know can go anywhere from 90 days fuzz to many many months. it could be the costs that are involved. there are loan application

fees, that could discourage smaller commuter railroads applying for these loans. it may rely on capital budgets to finance investor projects applying for these loans but we will certainly report years ago that a way to streamline the process, the build america bureau was intended to consolidate these credit programs and streamline the process and put procedures in place that is to be determined quite frankly and we have work we are planning. maybe together we can figure that out and look at how they plan to do oversight of these programs. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> members of the panel realized many members of this committee have two other hearing scheduled at the same time.

thank you for your patience. let me just observe generally we have had some explicit statements on the part of the committee chairman and the ranking member. i understand the testimony today has not been particularly encouraging about our ability to handle this requirement fulfilled by the end of the year but i do think the chairman and ranking member statement indicate on behalf of the congress they are trying to say patience is running out and clearly trying not to shut down

train traffic around the country but we need whoever to understand we need to get the attention of those responsible and get a timetable that will work and avoid, if i might say a trend coming figuratively or literally. i think "escape and control" and ranking member nelson for being explicit. i might as well ask about an area of particular importance to me which is amtrak from mobile to new orleans. the southern rail commission, mr. anderson, had hoped for a

longer route and seems the real interest, the real possibility for making it work is to take this heavily populated area. mobile is a major city. the gulf coast, mississippi, heavily populated, one of the major cities on the south in terms of population and potential traffic. the commission has trimmed its proposal to that. i am just hoping you can give me some encouragement about making that actually work. of the schedule can accommodate passengers and the public, if the trains are reliable and run on time, this could be a winner because the population is

there. how is ptc going between new orleans and mobile. when will it be complete? what impact will it have on amtrak? and also understand you talked about this but are we okay with the interoperability of the freight on ptc. >> the interoperability piece is going well. we federated or in the process of what is called federating, hooking our system to their system so it speaks to our locomotives was that process is going well with union pacific blues they have been real leaders. >> not particularly well with thune. >> it is going better with

them. northwest southern has done a good job with us and we are doing a good job with csx. >> you want to encourage csx. >> let me get to your question but i actually think well-timed well-run service between new orleans and mobile is a winner especially when it is both ways, 3 times, 4 times a day, big population centers. i am from the gulf coast. i live on the gulf coast so i'm familiar with that part of the world, it would work. the problem is until our preference rights and incremental cost rights under the 1971 statute that created amtrak are properly enforced, the question for reintroduction of that service was $2 billion. the challenge we have in all these markets where we have

roots that make good sense we have never been able to get the preference right that amtrak has on the freights enforced and we have never been able to get them to think straight about true incremental costs because that is what congress said in 71. >> you say the law is there, just not enforced. whose responsibility is it to enforce that law? >> hopefully yours. >> we are the legislative branch. what is the enforcement office? >> stb. we would like a private right of action. >> statute would have to be amended. the law is there. >> the law is there but since 1971 there has never been any effective enforcement over the enforcement action. is amtrak, that massive delay.

>> the surface transportation board could enforce it as an agency but you would like some cause of action. >> correct. >> sen. cortez masto. >> like sen. wicker i appreciate your patience your written testimonies are very helpful. i know my colleagues who managed the transportation appropriations have recently written to sec. chow about the need to spend millions in fiscal year 2017 funding to facilitate progress on the ptc at the fra blues the fra reported to staff only eight railroads with conditionally

certified safety plans, four more under review and 25 who haven't even submitted. mr. anderson or mr. mayor, with the average size and complexity of the ptc safety or implementation plans generally? can you talk about that? >> we have submitted ptc implementation plans. our next step would be in the months ahead as we submit applications that are extremely complicated, long documents but one is collecting data and making plans to be able to file those applications which we had recent interactions to help understand what is required. >> how long does it take? does it take the experts a wild to review and certify? >> we have allowed eight months

in our schedule and the fra told us they would make every effort to do that but we need them to hold up that's legal to stay on schedule. >> is there a timeframe that takes to get through it? >> we have never been through it before. >> for test waivers from 10 days 5 to 100 days but for the safety plans which can be 5000 futures and more they said they can only review two or three a year. >> okay. so let me ask you this. let me follow up. your testimony underscored the lack of an appeal process. i would ask barry deweese and ms. fleming, can you talk about the progress you have seen in staffing up experts internally at the fra and whether it has

been sufficient to help facilitate faster progress on certification of ptc on the national network where it is required. >> there are 12 ptc experts blues that is not a lot given we see in the next week 10 months into next year work load capacity coming to play, the rfc applications, safety plans so we suggested they consider prioritizing, having a risk-based approach, where do we put the resources? do we go after the railroads that have the largest passengers? do we go after passengers that are really struggling and have a long way to go, do we go after railroads that need a push over the wall? we leave it up to them. just having 12 people in house with all these documents and approval processes coming your way, need to think about the approach. >> has the administration

impact why there are 12 in-house? >> it has been this way for a while. it is hard to get these folks. there are a limited number of experts out there. i don't think there's a long queue of people you can talk about. >> i heard the narrative there is plenty of federal funding available to the railroads. we heard that today and not making fast enough progress on ptc. would you agree with that sentiment? >> we are grateful for the influence of the fra, we have significant money available to us to complete our work. we submitted invoices, a third of those funds and we will begin to pay back that loan. our problem is not money. more money would not help us move faster. our bottleneck as we just

alluded to the lack of qualified talent and expertise everywhere in the country, looking for the same pool of talent and working with systems integrator to creatively tap the talent to develop the software that is necessary. >> my time is up. thank you for being here. >> thank you, sen. cortez masto. i would like to ask a question and direct this file is to david mayer and mr. anderson but i wonder what guidance would be helpful for you as you continue to work to meet the implementation requirements. >> we recently received clarification to help us understand the road ahead.

it has been very helpful. our main concern at this point is resourcing to process and - the timeframe is going to be very tight. if there is anything this committee can do to tap into additional resources or talent within the department of transportation that may be helpful. and leading an effort industrywide, everyone in on a regular basis when we go through hours at a time, line by line, installations all over

the country, he has done a good job of it and has to spearhead it for the whole industry. >> should have been there to 6 months ago in their job. i heard this reiterated in response to questions posed by members of the committee because of the complex and challenging undertaking but it sounds like if i heard correctly the most challenging aspect for full implementation is software. you talked about how you plan to overcome that challenge. anything else before we wrap up?

>> we heard a lot about commitment. the congress in general, committed to ptc implementation which we heard a little talk about the mta. i want to end by dekaing on the board of directors is extremely clear that ptc is a high priority is absolutely essential for us to bring online and further provide for safety of our customers and the commitment extends to the managing director and implementation, we are working as hard as we can to bring the promise of ptc into reality. >> you heard us convey the sense of urgency we attached to getting implementation done in accordance with requirement and deadline. let us know as this moves forward, consulting with the

fra, what additional help you might need if there's anything this committee or the congress can do. i will ask unanimous consent for the record from the association of american railroads on implementation of ptc, we will keep the hearing record open for a couple weeks. members indicated a desire to submit questions for the record. if our witnesses could respond, we can close the record out, it would be greatly appreciated. it is an important and timely hearing and important update for us in terms of what is happening to this issue. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> given -- >> that is something, why we want to have a hearing today and some of those years end challenges, tens of thousands of people on commuter railroads. they are not in compliance with the major issue that we want them to know we expect them to get here. a means of utilization and more resources, give some thought to

what to do with respect to the fra as the year moves forward but significant progress in terms of compliance with the deadline. >> they do not meet that deadline? >> it could be. i think it could be financial tendencies and at this point it is preliminary, that is what we are trying to do. we want to help them anyway we can but the interoperability issues are challenging blue jays you heard even amtrak, they are doing really well with this. ..

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