F66344F234828BD7872589F6006ADA69 Hearing Summary

PUBLIC
BILL SUMMARY For RAILROAD PANEL PRESENTATIONS

INTERIM COMMITTEE TRANSPORTATION LEGISLATION REVIEW COMMITTEE
Date Jul 24, 2023
Location Old State Library

Railroad Panel Presentations - Committee Discussion Only

Attachment Tag

File Name

Attachment H

Attachment I

Attachment J

Attachment K

01:27:12 PM

Andy Williams, Director
of Public Affairs at BNSF Railway, and Jeff Hankins, BNSF Manager Hazardous
Materials, Field Operations, Emergency Responses, introduced themselves
and began their presentation. BNSF's presentation is included as Attachment
H. Mr. Hankins went over safety measures, statistics on hazardous
materials rail transport, BNSF HAZMAT shipments, causes of train accidents
(mostly human caused), prevention and reducing risk, Colorado key routes,
detector spacing, first responder training, commodity flow studies, incident
mobilization, mobilization of pre-positioned hazmat responders, air monitoring
assets, training statistics, and AskRail application.

01:41:38 PM

Mike Ogborn, Short
Line and Regional Railroad Association, introduced himself and began his
presentation. Short Line's presentation is included as Attachment I. He
discussed the short line connection to the freight rail system, safety
items, culture of safety, safety culture assessment model, training programs
on HAZMAT and related products, protecting the environment, environmental
activities, and some bipartisan options for railroads, labor organizations,
and the legislature to collaborate on.

01:54:20 PM

Rod Doerr, Vice President
and Chief Safety Officer for Union Pacific Railroad, and Nathan Anderson,
Senior Director of Public Affairs at Union Pacific Railroad, introduced
themselves and began their presentation on Union Pacific's safety performance.
Union Pacific's presentation is included as Attachment J and a handout
is included as Attachment K. Mr. Doerr showed statistics on railroad safety
versus the safety of other industries (with railroad as the safest), technology
to create safer networks (including drones, machine visioning, and underground
fiber optic sound monitoring), and other methods to keep communities safe.

02:07:36 PM

The panel responded
to questions from the committee on train length data reporting to the Federal
Railroad Administration, fire-fighting resources on the part of railroads,
maintenance of accident detectors, the interaction between freight and
passenger rail, crew levels, incident mobilization on the Western Slope,
tracking of road blockages, and Fort Collins specific concerns about road
blockages.

Railroad Panel Presentations - Committee Discussion Only

Colorado General Assembly