October 11, 2014, - Just 10 days after our union warned Amtrak's Chief Engineer, one of the contractor’s crane topples. "We believe that the project is being mismanaged and the contractor is not being held accountable... furthermore we believe that the contractor does not work safely." Detailed in the attachments of our union’s letter are unsafe practices, such as but not limited to, the access roads, training of the contractor foremen and the inadequacy of the so called RWP contractor training afforded the contractor employees.

This is not Amtrak's first awarness of serious safety issues on this test track project. On August 20, 2014, Amtrak’s own engineering representative issued a memo stating: “between the hours of 6:00pm and 9:00pm, an employee from CASE Foundations moved a rail-mounted piece of equipment which was unauthorized and unprotected move. The rail-mounted rig was sitting an out-of-service (No.1 track) and was moved from the area of Plainsboro Road to Princeton Junction, without the presence of any Amtrak personnel or protection.” Very lucky to have been no loss of life when this contractor arbitrairly moved a track car without proper authority.

Jed Dodd's letter characterized the unsafe actions of the Race Track project's contractor as “an accident waiting to happen.” This recent crane accident only furthers the union’s understanding that it’s not a matter of when but of why.

View General Chairman Dodd’s letter to Chief Engineer Scot Naparstek.