Hotline #98 - August 6, 1999

There are now 22 names on S.1144, the bill that would let states spend their TEA-21 funds on intercity passenger rail and make certain other changes to TEA-21. The newest co-sponsors are Bayh (D.-Ind.), Graham (D.-Fla.), Torricelli (D.-N.J.), Abraham (R.-Mich.), Allard (R.-Colo.), and Mack (R.-Fla.). Further action on this bill, as well as on the Senate's transportation appropriations bill, will await the return of lawmakers after Labor Day.

The Washington Post carried as its lead business-section story on August 1 a Don Phillips report on Amtrak's high-speed train sets. He said they have reached 165 mph and -- with the tilt mechanism not functioning -- they ride better at 145 than the Metroliners do at 125. He said the problem of truck hunting was solved by using a different tread profile on the wheels, which apparently led to very rapid wear of the wheel flanges, which they are now trying to solve.

Edward Dubroski replaced Clarence Monin as president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Monin is a Clinton appointee to the Amtrak Reform Council, where he likely will continue to serve.

After the near-head-on collision between two Silver Palms near Jacksonville early (3:00 am) on July 1, Amtrak restored a second person to locomotive cabs on the Jacksonville-Lakeland portion of these runs. The two-person engine crew presumably will continue while a new "Alertness Task Force" -- composed of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, FRA, and Amtrak -- studies the safety of nighttime one-person engine crews.

The July 15 Florida Times-Union said an "Amtrak safety team, a committee of employees from several departments, concluded June 11 that 'it is unsafe to run locomotives with only one engineer between the hours of midnight and 6:00 am,' according to an Amtrak memo summarizing the meeting's results." Amtrak told NARP that the only basis for the Times-Union report was a meeting among unionized employees, some of whom expressed concerns about the practice. Management was not told about this until after the July 1 accident.

The Times-Union correctly reported that Amtrak's Cliff Black said in the past nine months, the number of instances in which Amtrak locomotive crews were cited for breaking operating rules declined by nearly 20%. The paper did not mention that this decline took place while the number of runs with one-person crews was increasing.

The current Amtrak/BLE contract took effect a year ago. It increased the allowable length of one-person engine-crew runs from four to six hours, and gave all Amtrak engineers a special pay increase in accordance with the general pattern of letting employees realize some of the benefits of more productive work practices.

When the restored Greensboro, N.C., station (mentioned last week) opens in two years, it might be for buses only, as issues relating to restoring tracks past the station are not yet resolved. Amtrak has been in a small facility at an outlying freight yard since 1979.

Air Safety Week recently said Air Line Pilots Association President Paul McCarthy warned that technology is being used to cram more planes into the sky instead of to reduce pressures on pilots and controllers. The August 2 Wall Street Journal carried lead stories about air travel woes in both the "A" and "B" sections. The "B" story, headlined, "Fliers Fume as Air Delays Become a Way of Live," began with an anecdote about a Raleigh-New York flight terminated in Baltimore, where the airline told passengers the train was their fastest way home.