FOR RELEASE	Contact: Dennis Watson
07/12/99 (Monday)	(202) 565-1596
No. 99-35	FIRS 1 (800) 877-8339
	www.stb.gov

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD RESPONDS TO FRA REQUEST FOR MORE REPORTING FROM CSX AND NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILROADS FOR SAFETY MONITORING

Surface Transportation Board (Board) Chairman Linda Morgan announced today that the Board's Director of Compliance and Enforcement is requiring additional reporting from the "CSX" and "Norfolk Southern" (NS) railroads to aid the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) safety monitoring of the implementation of the "Conrail transaction." This additional reporting requirement responds to an FRA request for information on the out-of-service ratio of CSX and NS locomotives.

Chairman Morgan noted that the Board and FRA have been actively involved in monitoring respectively the service and safety aspects of the transaction, and the new information will aid FRA with its safety monitoring. The first report containing the new information will be filed with the Board on July 21, 1999, and those reports will be placed on both of the railroads' websites, as well as on the Board's website. In its letter to the carriers on the new reporting, the Board also recommended to CSX and NS that they expand their weekly reporting as part of the Class I reporting through the Association of American Railroads to include the additional terminal areas for CSX of Baltimore, and for NS of Kansas City, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, which are of interest to FRA. In addition to its monitoring of the transaction and interface with FRA, the Board continues to be in daily contact with shippers, involved railroads, and rail employees on issues that are of individual or general significance.

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