NO TRAIN BRAKES AFTER 10 YEARS, ENGINEERS PROTEST

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 -- Following today's train accidents (one a school bus
collision and the other a derailment releasing hazardous materials), the
nation's locomotive engineers are blasting the government agency responsible
for rail employee and public safety.

"Trains running without working emergency brakes is ludicrous and preventable.
A school bus collision is a locomotive engineer's worst nightmare," said Ronald
P. McLaughlin, president of the 54,000-member Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers and an engineer of 40 years.  "For ten years, the Federal Railroad
Administration has ignored our testimony and dragged its feet on implementing
National Transportation Safety Board conclusions that two-way emergency brakes
would prevent train accidents, hazmat spills, fatalities and injuries."

Reporting to the FRA, after another recent investigation of a train collision
and derailment, the NTSB concluded:  "There would have been no accident had the
train had a two-way EOT (End-of-Train) device." A two-way EOT allows the
engineer to apply emergency brakes from the both the front and rear ends of the
train. The NTSB also repeated its 1989 finding and recommendation to the FRA:
"Require the use of two-way EOT devices." "Trains don't have two-way emergency
brakes because the FRA has done nothing, after a decade of accident cause
findings and pleas," said McLaughlin.

BLE Vice-President & National Legislative Representative Leroy D. Jones, also
an engineer, added, "We have been pushing the FRA since 1985, to require full
emergency braking capability. "Further, in 1992, Congress passed the Rail
Safety Enforcement Act which required the FRA to develop a regulation to assure
dependable emergency train braking," said Jones. "We applaud the NTSB and
Chairman Jim Hall for not backing down from the facts and findings that are the
result of years of accident investigations. But we're disgusted by the FRA's
decade of not dealing with facts and ignoring a federal law requiring FRA
action."

"For what one accident costs the railroads, more than 500 trains can be
equipped," with two-way emergency brakes, noted Jones. He also criticized the
FRA for not requiring working radios on the nation's trains. The BLE wants the
FRA to issue a separate and specific regulation requiring two-way emergency
brakes on trains, consistent with yet another NTSB recommendation.

CONTACT: Leroy D. Jones, 202-347-7936
         Stephen W. FitzGerald, 216-241-2630, ext. 251, CompuServe: 102002,1674
         Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers