Tuesday, March 13, 2007 (Washington, DC) The train accident in Oneida, New York and other recent major rail accidents in New York State are of great concern to me and over the past 90-days I have directed the Federal Railroad Administration to take aggressive steps to find out what went wrong. The FRA is: actively conducting comprehensive accident investigations, performing a safety review of railroad bridges in western New York, and scheduling one of our automated track inspection vehicles to check track across the State this spring. I have also personally met with CSX senior executives to discuss their rail safety problems and the results of an FRA focused inspection on CSX property.

I am committed to taking all necessary action to determine why these train accidents happened and will assess penalties against those who violated federal rail safety regulations. I have also asked the FRA regional office to expedite our investigations into CSX accidents in New York so we can use the findings to guide our next actions to prevent future accidents from occurring.