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ATTACHMENT 8

Strikes Interfering with
Rail Passenger Service

Section 1158(b) of the Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981, P.L. 97-35, 45 U.S.C. 1108(b), is deleted and the following new subsection (b) inserted in lieu thereof:

"(b) (1) Any person engaging in concerted economic action over disputes arising out of airline operations or out of freight or commuter operations provided by any railroad other than Amtrak, or by any transportation or commuter authority, shall not be entitled as part thereof to engage in any strike against Amtrak, Amtrak Commuter or any other unrelated commuter authority, or otherwise induce any employee of said railroads to refrain from working, where an effect thereof is to interfere with rail passenger service. (2) Amtrak, Amtrak Commuter or any other commuter authority whose business is disrupted by secondary activity made unlawful by this subsection, or imminently threatened with such disruption, may bring an action in a United States district court to enforce this subsection. Notwithstanding

the provisions of sections 101 to 151 of Title 29, or any other provisions of law, the district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction over actions to remedy any violation of this subsection, to grant injunctive relief, and to award to the prevailing party the cost of the suit and damages. This subsection does not create a right of action by a carrier that is a party to the underlying labor dispute."

Mr. LUKEN. Thank you, Mr. Claytor.
We will take a 10 minute recess.

[Brief recess.]

Mr. LUKEN. Mr. Claytor, let me join with those in their preliminary statements who have directed accolades your way with respect to the performance of Amtrak. It is good to see that it is bustling in many, many places-and that is the objective most desired. We know that it is due to your efficient management that this result is being obtained.

Now, a number of States, including my home State, are studying proposals to develop high-speed trains. These new systems would use advanced rail or magnetic levitation technologies which will offer speeds up to 300 miles per hour.

Is Amtrak involved, or does it have a role to play in these plans at all?

Mr. CLAYTOR. No, sir. With our surplus funds, we might be willing to do that. But I haven't seen any sign of any surplus funds anytime, and I don't think we can afford to get involved in that. What we've got to do is get all the money we can to make the system that we are running run well and to expand into other areas that we ought to be serving, but can't, because we haven't got the money.

Mr. LUKEN. Do you view them as a threat in any way?

Mr. CLAYTOR. No, sir. Mag Lev is not railroad. It's an entirely different system-not even use rails. I have studied the technology just casually. It's quite clear to me Mag Lev as a commercial venture is probably quite a way off. I think the first thing you have to do if you want to try that is to find a relatively short distance and put it in effect and try it out commercially.

It works mechanically, but how the costs are going to work is a very serious question. I don't think anybody is going to put in a big Mag Lev system anytime soon until after you've had several years experience with a short system-and we haven't even had that. So I think it's a long way off, like 2010, or something like that.

Mr. LUKEN. With reference to other developments, we are all aware of the improvement in class I railroads, overall, that is, since the passage of the Staggers Act. Many of these railroads are moving greater volumes of freight on less track.

Has the increased volume of freight affected Amtrak's operations?

Mr. CLAYTOR. Yes, I'd have to say that where a line has very heavy freight trains, it necessarily is likely to have more freight derailments and more freight interference. But we have priority with our passenger trains, by statute; most of the railroads recognize that and do a pretty good job.

The greatest off-corridor delays have been signal failures, which when they occur they tie the whole railroad up; and freight derailments, because a freight derailment-there's nothing anyone can do about that, we're stuck behind it and we can't get in for some hours until it gets cleared up. Freight derailments are almost inevitably going to be a function of the density of the freight traffic.

Mr. LUKEN. With respect to smoking, Mr. Claytor, I know that you have guidelines or some policies with reference to smoking.

Where do you derive your authority for those guidelines and what effect do they have? Would you describe them generally for us?

Mr. CLAYTOR. I'd like to ask Mr. Norman, who is really in charge of this area. But I'll say first, our authority is the authority to operate trains. We have the authority to establish rates, fares, procedures, and everything else. There are no regulations controlling that and no statutory limitations on it.

Mr. LUKEN. How do you consider that you differ from the airlines?

Mr. CLAYTOR. I don't think we do, except the airlines have had statutes imposed on them. It's perfectly possible to require us to do things by statute. But at the present time, there are none. I think we've done a pretty good job.

We did a survey of all of our passengers and we asked both smokers and nonsmokers to comment on what they thought of how we had handled the problem between them. I think something like 87 percent of the nonsmokers were satisfied that we did a pretty good job and it was reasonable and they were okay.

A somewhat smaller percentage of the smokers, but something like a 70-odd percent of the smokers, said the same thing. One has to find a medium between them.

Mr. LUKEN. Who did that survey?

Mr. CLAYTOR. Mr. Norman, who did the survey?

Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chairman, we have a group for which we regularly make passenger assessment surveys at Amtrak and we use outside companies as well.

Mr. LUKEN. It wasn't Gallup or one of those?

Mr. NORMAN. No, sir. As part of our regular passenger assessment surveys we perform them twice a year.

Mr. LUKEN. Not one of those totally independent, totally reliable organizations?

Mr. NORMAN. I consider them reliable but not totally independent, sir.

Mr. WHITTAKER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. LUKEN. I'd be glad to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WHITTAKER. I'm just curious-those 13 percent of the Amtrak passengers that didn't object, how many more percent just quit using your service because they couldn't even stand it?

Mr. NORMAN. Sir, I think that we've been judged at-I don't know the precise answer, Mr. Whittaker, but one thing I can say is that looking at the general increase in our ridership and our revenues that we have been having an increasing degree of satisfaction with the service that we're doing, and we try in every way to look at what our passengers think and to try to adjust our services accordingly. And in this case, we think we've done so.

Mr. WHITTAKER. Mr. Norman, I respect that and I appreciate that, but I'm still suggesting that the survey was done of passengers walking into a depot, those that choose not to ride because they can't protect themselves are not going to be picked up by your service.

Mr. CLAYTOR. Mr. Whittaker, I think they can protect themselves very well in most cases. I think our smoking regulations, which we would like to submit an analysis to you of what our smoking regu

lations. They vary from type of equipment to type of equipment, train to train, have to. But I think it's extraordinarily effective.

We have about 20 percent of our passengers are smokers. If we had no smoking at all on any train, I think we'd lose a significant number of those because of the long distance that we travel. It's unlike an airline, which is on board for 2 or 3 hours at most. We're on board for 48 hours on many of these trains. And if you say you can't smoke on the train at all, I think we'd lose all those people. Mr. LUKEN. Did you want to proceed, briefly, to state what the policies are? I think Mr. Claytor asked you and then we may have interrupted you.

Mr. NORMAN. What we've had to do, Mr. Chairman, is to provide a smoke-free environment to every passenger that wants it. Therefore, what we've done is adjusted it to every kind of train and every kind of service that we have. I think I can just very briefly give you an idea of what we're talking about.

In our Eastern long distance trains, for an example, we allow smoking only in the sleeping car rooms and in the lounges. We do not allow any smoking in the coaches at all. So that those who want to smoke can find a place to smoke, but others do not have to walk through it.

In the case of our Western long distance trains, which are newer, two levels in this regard to superliners, we allow smoking only in the sleeping cars and the rear four coaches or rows of the coaches. In this particular case, we can keep it moving along so that people again can find areas if they don't want to be involved and not have it intrusive.

For our unreserved trains, as an example, our Metroliner service I might use as an example, we provide one smoking car for every four to seven coaches that we have, and two for eight or more. So in the case of a Metroliner service, we only have one car that's for smoking, it is at the end, no person has to go through it, in any survey, that we can keep it completely segregated.

And in our club cars, we have one half that is for smoking, the other half, and there's a section in between. And, finally, we've just gone to a new system which is going into effect, but in our customs labs we're having no smoking at all. So if you look at that particular approach for all of our cars there-what we've attempted to do is to provide a smoke-free environment so no one has to be there, but still take into consideration the 20 to 25 percent of our passengers who do smoke that they can find a place that they can do so also.

Mr. LUKEN. On your Metroliner in the last three rows of the seats in the full club, smoking is permitted, isn't it?

Mr. NORMAN. Excuse me, sir.

Mr. CLAYTOR. On the Metroliner.

Mr. LUKEN. The Metroliner.

Mr. NORMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LUKEN. As I read your new bulletin, it says, in the last three rows of the seats in the full club, smoking is permitted.

Mr. NORMAN. Our policy says that in the-

Mr. LUKEN. The last two rows of seating in the split club.

Mr. NORMAN. They are different things, sir, that I'm referring to.

In the Metroliner service, we havese what's called a full club car. One half of it is for smokers-

Mr. LUKEN. You said one half, but this says three rows and then two rows.

Mr. NORMAN. This is another car. We have another kind of club car that is not in Metroliner service-they are called split club cars. They have four rows no smoking and two rows that are smoking.

Mr. LUKEN. But in your Metroliner you do permit smoking in the last three rows of one club and the last two rows of another club, right?

Mr. CLAYTOR. No, sir, that's wrong.

Mr. LUKEN. That's what it says, doesn't it?

Mr. CLAYTOR. I will have to look at that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Norman, let me explain it. The Metroliner club cars are split in the middle-the service area's in the middle. Now, normally all the seats on one side of the service area are smoking and all the seats on the other side are smoking. However, if there are fewer smokers than will fill that whole section, we may allow smoking only in the last two rows or the last row, or not at all-it depends on who's there. But the maximum number of smokers that we have is half the car. But if there are fewer than that, we move it back. Mr. LUKEN. I'm getting the impression that basically you prohibit smoking, but at the same time, you say that if you prohibited smoking you'd lose some passengers.

Mr. CLAYTOR. We don't prohibit smoking altogether. We limit smoking.

Mr. LUKEN. I think the two are somewhat in opposition.

Mr. CLAYTOR. We limit smoking, sir, we have to limit. We do want to limit smoking, to the maximum

Mr. LUKEN. What do you think of the proposal in the bill that smoking would be prohibited in cars where nonsmokers are riding? Mr. CLAYTOR. It would be impossible to do that on the Metroliner club cars. That's about the only place that I can think of where it would be impossible to do that. That would be impossible-the car's not so constructed. We only have one club car on a train. They are the highest fare passengers that we carry-the most expensive, the most profitable.

We have a significant number of smokers. It varies from half to about 25 percent in the club cars, and I would hate to drive off all of those smokers. So, for the most part, one end of thatMr. LUKEN. That's what we did on the▬▬

Mr. CLAYTOR. One end of the car is always smoke-free. The other end may have two or three seats that are for nonsmokers. But, frankly, a lot of nonsmokers are

Mr. LUKEN. If there's no partition in between how do you say it's smoke-free?

Mr. CLAYTOR. There is not a closed partition, but there is a big space where the counter is, and the cars are ventilated from the two ends. There's not going to be much smoke going from one end with this long counter in between where there are no seats, and then the seats at the other side. So there's a space-Mr. LUKEN. Is that ventilation a requirement? Mr. CLAYTOR. No, it's the way the cars are built.