78-10-B6

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Trains

Transcript A good case can be made that the ills of railroading were brought on by excessive government interference in the running of the railroads. Now of course that same government has ridden to the rescue with Amtrak and in the East a combine called Conrail. Both are losing horrendous sums of taxpayers money every day. I just have to read you a letter to the Department of Transportation from the "Texas South Eastern Railroad" responding to the Department's order that strobe lights be mounted on locomotives to reduce railroad crossing accidents. This letter was inserted in the Congressional record. There are several references to Conrail in the letter, possibly because Conrail has recently been trying to explain to Congress why it is losing millions and millions of dollars at the same time it wants to give a hefty pay raise to those who are managing Conrail. The letter reads: Gentlemen: The best solution would be to require all motor vehicles to STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN at all railroad grade crossings .... This of course will never be considered because it would probably eliminate 95 per cent of all crossing accidents ... It would also place a heavy drain on the legal profession and that alone will keep such action from ever being taken. Therefore, we have on our own and without any government grant of any kind made an independent survey ... We have determined that one strobe light on each locomotive will probably eliminate one per cent of all grade crossing accidents. Based on this assumption, if one hundred strobe lights were placed on each locomotive we could eliminate 100 per cent of all grade crossing accidents. We would also suggest that no trains be operated during daylight hours as daylight will reduce the effectiveness of the strobe lights. Probably the next best method would be to require that all trains stop at all grade crossings. This, of course, would greatly increase the railroads' operating expenses. We have estimated this figure to be $697,492,654,552.27 annually ... Our figures were arrived at with the help of a cost expert on loan from Conrail. This same gentleman advises us that this amount is insignificant, and that we could, of course, expect a government grant for this expense. One method would be to add this to Conrail's request for the next six months' Operating Expenses, where it would probably go unnoticed. One other suggestion would be to require all vehicles to approach all grade crossings at 90 miles-per-hour. This would allow many motorists to beat the trains at a legal speed. Those that did not could be almost certain of not being crippled in the resulting collision. Respectfully submitted, George T. Honea Vice President, General Manager "Texas Southeastern Railroad" This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 78-10-B6 Production Date 07/15/1978 Book/Page RPtV-340 Audio Youtube? No
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