464 Wrecking c r e w s.
Telegraph operators, e t c.
Emergency provisions.
Maximum h o u r s.
Penalty.
Statute of limitations.
PUBLIC LAW 91-169-DEC. 26, 1969
[83 STAT.
"(c) The provisions of this Act shall not apply to the crews of wreck or relief trains. " (d) The provisions of this section shall not apply to an employee during such period of time as the provisions of section 3 apply to his duty and off-duty periods. "SEC. 3. (a) No operator, train dispatcher, or other employee who by the use of the telegraph, telephone, radio, or any other electrical or mechanical device dispatches, reports, transmits, receives, or delivers orders pertaining to or affecting train movements— " (1) shall be required or permitted to be or remain on duty for more than nine hours, whether consecutive or in the aggregate, in any twenty-four-hour period in any tower, office, station, or place where two or more shifts are employed; and "(2) shall be required or permitted to be or remain on duty for more than twelve hours, whether consecutive or in the aggregate, in any twenty-four-hour period in any tower, office, station, or place where only one shift is employed. "(b) For the purposes of subsection (a), in determining the number of hours an employee is on duty in a class of service, and at a place, described in paragraph (1) or (2) of such subsection, there shall be counted, in addition to the time spent by him on duty in such service at such place, all time on duty in other service performed for the common carrier during the twenty-four-hour period involved. "(c) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, in case of emergency the employees named in such subsection may be permitted to be and remain on duty for four additional hours in any period of twenty-four consecutive hours of not exceeding three days in any period of seven consecutive days. "SEC. 4. The requirements imposed by this Act with respect to time on duty of employees are hereby declared to result in the maximum permissible hours of service consistent with safety. However, shorter hours of service and time on duty of employees for lesser periods of time are hereby declared to be proper subjects for collective bargaining between any common carrier subject to this Act and its employees. "SEC. 5, (a) Any such common carrier, or any officer or agent thereof, requiring or permitting any employee to go, be, or remain on duty in violation of section 2 or section 3 of this Act shall be liable to a penalty of $500 for each and every violation, to be recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States attorney in the district court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violations shall have been committed; and it shall be the duty of such United States attorney to bring such suit upon satisfactory information being lodged with him; but no such suit shall be brought after the expiration of two years from the date of such violation. "(b) It shall be the duty of the Secretary of Transportation to lodge with the appropriate United States attorney information of any violation as may come to the knowledge of the Secretary. "(c) In all prosecutions under this Act the common carrier shall be deemed to have knowledge of all acts of all its officers and agents. " (d) The provisions of this Act shall not apply in any case of casualty or unavoidable accident or the act of God; nor where the delay was the result of a cause not known to the carrier or its officer or a^ent in charge of the employee at the time said employee left a terminal, and which could not have been foreseen. "(e) With respect to any railroad which employs a total of not more than 15 employees covered by this Act^ the Secretary of Trans-
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