Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Again, I'm not an engineering expert, but it's not a one-for-one, where I pick up a piece of rail here and put it there. When you resurface a rail, you tamp the ballast and things of that nature. It's not as simple as saying I can take my track and instead of putting my money in place A, put it at place B, and the same thing happens.

Transport committee  I would agree. It's handled at the operational level in terms of where decisions are made about where to put particular trains and looking into all the circumstances regarding where they're coming from, where there's capacity to put the trains, etc.

Transport committee  Our operations guy would probably know that. I don't know.

Transport committee  It's a complicated issue. You're asking, why not? It's something we're willing to consider. It's something we're willing to look at. I think the circumstances that you mentioned are substantially different. They're not of the same nature in terms of the distance that would have to be traversed or the geography that we would have to traverse.

Transport committee  I don't have that information. Johan or any of the folks in Seattle, do you have it?

Transport committee  We gauge the track speed based upon the conditions that exist, and those change from time to time. If there is a need for maintenance at a particular time, we'll reduce the speed to allow that to be done. Are you talking about a systemic reduction in the speed limits there? Is that what you're asking?

Transport committee  I'll start, and then I'll ask some of our operating folks to discuss the protocol that is in place. To be clear, when we looked at the records, there have been seven stopped train events in the last nine years. When this situation does occur, it is clearly of deep concern to the community and to us, which is why we have put protocols in place to address it.

Transport committee  We have to reconcile our records.

Transport committee  I'll let our operating folks respond.

Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Orest Dachniwsky, and I am assistant vice-president and associate general counsel for BNSF Railway Company, in office at our corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. My job duties include providing support and counsel to our operating department on issues related to regulatory compliance and safety initiatives.

Transport committee  Yes, ma'am. As a result of our culture of safety, 99.998% of our trains carrying dangerous goods arrive at their destination without incident. We are also happy to report that we have extremely safe conditions at each of the communities we serve. In the City of White Rock, BNSF has invested heavily in our physical plant.