WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration has issued a final rule establishing minimum safety requirements for the size of train crews. The new rule enhances safety in the rail industry by generally requiring and emphasizing the importance and necessity of a second crewmember on all trains.
A second crewmember performs safety functions that could be lost when reducing crew size to a single person. Without the final rule, railroads could initiate single-crew operations without performing a rigorous risk assessment, mitigating known risks, or even notifying FRA, the feds said.
The final rule closes this loophole by establishing minimum standards and a federal oversight process to empower communities and railroad workers to make their voices heard by allowing for public input during FRA’s decision-making process on whether to grant special approval for one-person train crew operations. In finalizing this rule, FRA reviewed and considered over 13,500 written comments received during the 146-day comment period—in addition to the testimony from a one-day public hearing.
The final rule codifies train crew staffing rules at a federal level, ensuring that freight and passenger rail operations are governed by consistent safety rules in all states. This is an on-going issue as Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado, among others, have recently considered legislation to require two-person rail crews.
In addition, the final rule contains some differences from the initial notice of proposed rulemaking in how it treats freight railroads, especially Class II and III freight railroads. In limited cases, the rule permits exceptions for smaller railroads to continue or initiate certain one-person train crew operations by notifying FRA and complying with new federal safety standards.
