Downtown Marriott Hotel,
Philadelphia, PA
Quorum: 23 members (10 systems, 9 associate and 4 labor)
out of 30 currently appointed voting members attended, thus establishing a quorum. Voting
members attending - Systems: Amtrak, Conn-DOT, Long Island Rail Road, Metra, MARC,
Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority, Southern California Regional Railroad Authority and MBTA; Labor:
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, United Transportation Union, International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Brotherhood Railway Carmen; Associate:
Adtranz, Bombardier, Coach and Car Equipment Corporation, G.E. Transportation Systems,
General Motors Locomotive Group - Electro-Motive Division, Nippon Sharyo, Siemens
Transportation Systems, Knorr and WABCO. (See the attached list for the names of
individual members attending the meeting.)
Chairman Mike Wetherell called the meeting to order at 7:35 a.m.
The agenda for the meeting is attached to the minutes.
Anti-Trust Statement:
Mr. Tom Peacock reviewed the APTA PRESS Bylaws Anti-Trust
Statement.
Comments of William W. Millar, President of APTA
Mr. Wetherell introduced William W. Millar, the President of
APTA. Mr. Millar stated his strong support of the PRESS process and thanked railroad
members, labor members, builder/supplier members and government members for the important
role that each plays in the standards setting process. He also individually thanked the
APTA staff members that provide the behind the scenes support that keeps the Task Force
going.
Introduction of New Participants
Chairman Wetherell introduced the following new participants on the PRESS Task
Force:
- Bill Bohne represents the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is a
new voting member;
- Gary Fairbanks represents FRA on the structural and construction committee;
- Tom Rowbottom representing SEPTA;
- Steve Hilbert representing SEPTA; and
- David Bremner representing J.T. Nelson
PRESS Task Force Meeting Minutes – 1/22/98
Mr. Wetherell asked if there were any changes or corrections to
the minutes of the PRESS Task Force Meeting held on 1/22/98 in Washington D.C. Hearing
none, a move was made and seconded to approve the minutes as written. The motion passed.
Review of March 25th Committee Meetings:
Mr. Wetherell asked the committee chairs to review the
progress made by their respective committees.
Construction/Structural Committee
Ken Barnish reported that the Construction/Structural
Committee met in February at Metro-North Headquarters to review the standards presented
for voting today. The committee spent the majority of their time at yesterday’s
meeting responding to comments received from members on these standards. The committee
decided to delay the vote on the interior fittings standard and the interior fittings
recommended practice until the June Task Force Meeting. The committee may combine these
two documents into a single standard.
Kris Severson-Green gave an update on the three projects managed
by the Volpe Center—glazing, passenger seats and crash energy management—which
directly support standards under development by the committee. She expects the contract
for the glazing research to be awarded in approximately six weeks.
Ron Mayville gave the committee an update on the work being done
by Arthur D. Little on Crash Energy Management. The Volpe Center will soon release a
formal report on this work.
Rich Shults reported on the fire safety standards work being done
by the NFPA 130 group. The group met in Philadelphia yesterday.
The committee must tackle the issue of metric vs. English units
in standards. Ken wishes to bring the issue to a vote at the June Task Force meeting. An
issue paper intended to make Task Force members aware of the pros and cons each system of
units is included as an attachment to these minutes. Please review the paper to help
determine how to vote.
Ken appealed to Task Force members for a donation of a walkover
type seat for the seat attachment strength tests to be conducted as part of the FRA
sponsored research program. If your organization can donate a seat of this type, please
contact Ken at (914) 271-1656.
The Structural/Construction committee will meet May 4&5 in
Phoenix to finalize the corner post, cab seating and other standards to be brought before
the Task Force for a vote in June.
Mechanical Committee
Dave Carter reported that the mechanical committee spent the
majority of their time yesterday responding to comments from members on the three
documents that the group submitted for balloting. The committee considered all the
comments on these documents and made changes in response to most of them.
The committee also spent time reviewing the activity of the
sub-group working on low-speed, wheel-climb derailments. This group will hold its next
meeting at New Jersey Transit Headquarters in Newark on April 22. This group will meet
again on May 11 in Chicago. This is the day before the two-day ARM conference that
includes topics on the same subject. The committee has targeted December for the
completion of this subgroup’s work product.
The mechanical committee sub-group, led by Brad Black and Greg
Gagarin, working on up-dating wheel standards will meet at MARC’s BWI Rail Station
offices on April 8.
The committee plans to have compressed air quality and new truck
design standards ready for a vote in June. The entire committee will meet near the end of
April to review drafts of these standards.
Electrical Committee
Dave Elliott, substituting for Doug Warner, reported that
committee responded to members comments on the storage battery recommended practice. The
committee spent the majority of its time yesterday in a line-by-line review of the EMI/EMC
draft standard. The committee has 8 remaining standards and recommended practices under
development. They plan to bring the following four before the Task Force for a vote at the
June meeting: EMI/EMC, Head End Power, Wire and Cable, and Lighting.
The committee’s next meeting will be held at APTA’s
offices on April 28&29.
Systems Committee
Passenger Systems
Jack Reidy reported on passenger systems group’s progress. Duke
Zimmerman of Globe Transportation Graphics gave a presentation on rail car emergency
signs. Mr. Zickerman reported on fire test methods and fire safety analysis. Stephanie
Markos and J.K. Pollard reported the results of their lighting level measurements in
Conn-DOT and MBTA cars.
Bill Lydon presented and proposed new approaches to the group for time
driven emergency evacuation standards and emergency lightning standards based on a
"guiding path" rather than a light level. The group agreed to pursue these
concepts.
A sub-group will meet in Wilmington, Delaware on April 6 to work on the
emergency sign standards. More face-to-face meetings will be scheduled to pursue the two
new concepts in the near future.
Maintenance
Rich Conway reported on maintenance group progress. The group spent
time yesterday responding to comments from members on the door maintenance recommended
practice. However, periodic maintenance was the focus of the group’s work.
Mr. Conway reported broader participation on the committee and a very
good response to his appeal to commuter railroads for their maintenance plans and
practices. The committee has a list of safety related car components that need to be
included in the periodic maintenance program. The committee spent the majority of their
time discussing how to attack the tougher problem of maintenance intervals.
Discussion with FRA representatives indicated willingness on FRA’s
part to consider alternatives to strictly time based intervals. FRA would consider
flexibility to allow railroads to change initially established intervals as long as a good
basis for the change is presented and documented.
The committee made work assignments to prepare for their next meeting
to be held on May 5 in South Carolina. The committee intends to have the handbrake
maintenance standard ready for a vote at the June meeting.
Dan Foth asked for a few minutes of the Maintenance Committee Report to
discuss a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) need for "Rail Car Fleet Management
Plans". FTA must respond a concern of the inspector general on high spare car ratios
in the rail transit community. In the future, each commuter railroad may be required to
submit a "Rail Car Fleet Management Plan" to FTA. APTA will continue to work
with FTA to determine what will be required.
Federal Railroad Administration Observations
Grady Cothen of FRA’s Office of Safety spent the day yesterday
observing the work of each of the PRESS Task Force Committees. Chairman Wetherell asked
Mr. Cothen for some reaction to what he observed. Mr. Cothen expressed encouragement to
the Task Force members to continue their good work on tough issues. He specifically
mentioned the following as high interest safety items to FRA:
- wheel climb derailments;
- corner posts--cab cars and MU’s have a serious vulnerability that must be
decreased;
- emergency lighting, signs and evacuation--resolving these issues requires creativity;
Mr. Cothen complimented the Electrical Committee on the thoroughness of
their review of the EMI/EMC standard. He considers this an extremely important issue
particularly as it may affect future automatic train control systems.
Grady expressed strong support for the research and development efforts
necessary to form a basis for the standards that the Task Force is developing. He
explained the ex-parti rules that govern FRA personnel while they resolve issues with the
current passenger equipment rulemaking. He assured all parties that they would have an
opportunity to comment on the final rule.
Mike Wetherell thanked Grady for spending time with the committees and
for his interest in and support of PRESS activities.
Proposed By-Law Change
Voting at the last PRESS Task Force meeting revealed a need to
re-examine the voting procedure setout in the by-laws. The by-laws currently require a 75%
majority of the voting members present for a standard or recommended practice to be
adopted. Several of the supply members and some of the labor members chose not to vote on
some documents. When a voting member is present and elects not to vote, the result is the
equivalent of a negative vote. In many instances, the voting members wished not to vote
because they felt not qualified or their organization had no interest in the subject. They
did not intend to cast a negative vote.
To solve this problem, the executive committee examined the by-laws.
The executive committee recommended the attached proposed amendment to the by-laws. This
proposed amendment has the effect of requiring a 75% majority of the voting members that
chose to vote for a standard or recommended practice to be adopted.
The chair received a motion to amend the by-laws as proposed in the
attachment. The motion was seconded and passed without opposition. The chair placed the
new voting procedure into effect immediately.
Discussion of EMI/EMC Standard
Richard Benjamin and Carl Herrmann presented the basic concept of the
proposed EMI/EMC standard. The standard essentially specifies a process to be followed,
but it does not attempt to set levels that must be met.
Member Comment Procedures
Mr. Peacock asked members about the comment period procedures used to
prepare for this meeting that gave committee chairs and staff advisors another few days to
reply to members comments on documents presented for voting. Members generally agreed this
approach is an improvement over getting all the comments the morning of their committee.
As a result, Mr. Peacock proposed the following schedule for getting standard before the
Task Force at the June meeting:
May 18 – final drafts due to APTA
May 19 – APTA mails drafts with comment sheets to all members
June 8 – all comments due back to APTA
June 9 – all comments distributed to Committee Chairs
June 15 – Committee meetings
June 16 -- Task Force Meeting
Voting on Standards and Recommended Practices
Eight standards/recommended practices were brought before the Task
Force for voting. The author of each standard/recommended practice presented the document
to the Task Force and described how the committee responsible for the document responded
to the recommended changes. After each presentation, the Chair asked for discussion and
presentation of any significant opposition. After this discussion, the Chair called for a
vote on each document in its turn. The chair conducted a role call voice vote backed-up by
a written ballot collected by APTA. The written ballots will be kept on file by APTA.
The attached table contains the detailed results of the balloting.
Seven of the eight standards/recommended practices were adopted by the required 75%
majority of the voting that chose to vote. In addition, a list of the correct titles and
numbers of all the standards and recommended practices adopted by the Task Force to-date
is attached.
Standards vs. Recommended Practices
In response to comments received from members, the mechanical committee
decided to upgrade the recommended practice for new locomotive parking brakes to a safety
standard. This proposed changed evoked a discussion among the Task Force members. Several
expressed a concern that their organizations reviewed the document as a recommended
practice, not as a safety standard. Perhaps their organizations would have a different set
of comments on the document proposed as a standard. Based on this discussion, Chairman
Wetherell decided to delay vote on this standard until the June meeting.
As can be seen in the attached table summarizing the votes, the
four labor voting members present voted against the door maintenance recommended practice
because they have a strong opinion that the document should be a standard. Several members
suggested that the Task Force needs a clear policy on how to determine whether a document
is a standard or a recommended practice. The chair agreed to put together a small group
consisting of the executive committee and 2-3 labor members to recommend a policy to the
task force. Tom Peacock will obtain background information on how other standards setting
organizations have addressed this problem for the policy group to consider. Greg Gagarin
asked that the policy take into account the possibility of a recommended practice that
applies to a safety critical system or component.
Discussion of Implementation and Effective Date of Single Car
Test Standard
Tom Peacock reported that Dan Alpert of FRA contacted him
concerning implementation of the new passenger coach single car test standard. For FRA to
include this standard as part of the passenger safety standards rule, it must be formally
implemented by APTA and have an effective date. The PRESS By-Laws requires approval of the
commuter railroad CEO’s for final implementation of standards adopted by the PRESS
Task Force.
New Business
Gord Campbell asked for a more consistent approach to the
mark-up of documents to respond to comments received from members. Some authors have
complete bold new text and strikeout of old text versions for members to see before
voting. Others only summarize how comments were incorporated into revised versions of the
documents. Ed Murphy suggested this as another topic for the executive committee meeting.
David Elliott asked that the executive committee give guidance
on the use of the words should/shall as part of their policy on standards vs. recommended
practices.
Mike Nolan asked about standards governing the installation of
electrical outlets on passenger seats. Dave Elliot responded that the electrical standards
on wiring and ground fault detection adopted at the January meeting should apply.
Ed Murphy and Stephanie Markos announced an emergency lighting
demonstration to be conducted in a darkened SEPTA MU car positioned at Suburban Station,
track 0, starting at 1:00 p.m. Various types and levels of lighting will be
demonstrated—including the use of a cold smoke generator to simulate smoke-obscured
visual conditions.
Members brought up no further new business.
Adjournment
The Task Force meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.
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