chairman hersman. >> good morning. good morning, senator blumenthal, senator blunt and members of the committee. the n texas sb sent investigative teams to connecticut, missouri and maryland last month for four different accident investigations. in each of these accidents, there were problems that the ntsb has seen in our prior investigations. on may 17th during the evening rush home, a metro north eastbound train derailed in bridgeport about 20 seconds after that train came to rest, it was struck by a westbound train. there were over 70 injuries. two days prior to the crash a metro north inspection found a lack of ballast support at an insulated rail joint near the point of derailment. while this problem did not violate fra track safety standards, the ntsb is evaluating the damaged section of track as well as the adequacy of existing inspection standards. a second metro north accident occurred on may 28th when a track foreman was struck and killed by a train that was on track that should have been out of service. the

hersman testified earlier human factors or the number one cause of accidents. sometimes those human factors aren't accounted for in design or a piece of equipment that was manufactured is malfunctioning. it also doesn't address specifically preferred maintenance on tracks but knowing what we know today about positive train control and fatigue mitigation, that is where the low-hanging fruit is. that is where the best opportunity for significant improvement in the overall safety. it's not just for the employees. every time we have one of these major collisions that kills an employee, the surrounding community is also involved. many times in the evacuations the amount and the number of hazardous material products that are moving by rail today is growing. that's the safest form of transportation's for those products and that is exactly where they should be but that means that anytime there is an incident, anytime there is a collision the local communities equity goes up in that collision. so i encourage the committee to continue to work on that and to help us with