2024
Train Crew Safety Requirements Rule
September 2022
Train Crew Size Safety NPRM
December 2022
ASLRRA Comments on NPRM
December 2022
Chuck Baker Comments, FRA Hearing December 14
December 2022
SBA Office of Advocacy Comments
December 2022
Rep. Crawford, Ranking Member, House T & I Committee, Comments
December 2022
Senator Wicker, Ranking Member, Senate Commerce Committee, Comments
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has enacted a Train Crew Size Safety Requirements Rule that will force some short line railroads to hire more personnel or operate with more people on a train than necessary. It is the first time in the nearly 200-year history of railroading in the U.S. that there has been a federal rule on the number of people needed to operate a train. Crew size has long been handled via labor negotiations, and should remain so.
The rulemaking imposes a requirement to have two persons in the cab of a locomotive. This requirement, by the admission of the FRA, does not address any safety concern when using single person crews. It imposes significant burdens for short lines, and risks bankruptcy for these small businesses.
In addition, it limits short line railroads’ ability to provide flexible, white glove service to its customers, and to deliver carload traffic to our Class I partners.
It may eliminate rail transportation – the most environmentally friendly way to move freight over land – as a viable, efficient option for hundreds of shippers across the country, forcing that freight onto large trucks on the roadways among the motoring public.
Chuck Baker, President, ASLRRA
ASLRRA’s survey of its member short lines and modeling show that approximately 420 railroads operate at least some movements with only one person in the cab of the locomotive, and that approximately 195 of those railroads would not qualify for an exception to this rule and would not even be eligible to apply for a special approval of legacy one-person operations.
Those 195 railroads would risk losing shippers to other forms of transportation, or bankruptcy.
ASLRRA is against this rule as it is:
a) not tied to any documented safety metric or improvement,
b) has grossly underestimated the impacts to an entire class of railroads that are critical to the nation’s supply chain, including decreased competitiveness, reduction of efficiency, and onerous compliance requirements and
c) catches, we believe unintentionally, hundreds of small businesses in its net.
The Train Crew Safety Rule has such a significant impact on short line operations, that ASLRRA has brought a lawsuit, along with the Association of American Railroads (AAR), against the Federal Railroad Administration, urging its repeal.
Several states have also proposed legislation dictating crew size. ASLRRA has encouraged the FRA to exert pre-emption in this matter, so that a patchwork of regulations across the U.S. does not impede interstate traffic. ASLRRA has commented in several proceedings, including the State of Kansas DOT.
ASLRRA opposes any federal mandate absent a documented safety improvement.
We urge the FRA to withdraw the Train Crew Safety Requirements Rule, or revise to completely exempt short line railroads from any crew size and crew location mandate.
