(Railfanning.org News Wire) — Two senior House Democrats say the Federal Railroad Administration is not holding Class I railroads to the transparency rules attached to a safety waiver it granted them last year.
At issue is whether Congress and the public can trust what railroads report under a program that lets them scale back manual track inspections in favor of automated systems.
U.S. Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Washington, and Dina Titus, D-Nevada, raised the concern directly with FRA Administrator David Fink in a letter sent Thursday. Larsen and Titus argue that without consistent enforcement, lawmakers, local governments and outside observers have no way to independently check the data railroads submit.
The FRA’s Railroad Safety Board approved the five-year waiver in December, letting Class I railroads cut visual track inspections from twice weekly to once weekly if they meet conditions that include monthly and annual reporting and 24-hour derailment notices. CSX has said it plans to begin using the waiver on parts of its network in July, with other major railroads expected to follow.
Larsen and Titus opposed the waiver from the outset. In a June 2025 letter to then-Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, they cited the 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and noted that most Class I railroads still had not followed through on a post-derailment pledge to expand confidential safety reporting for workers.
In their new letter, Larsen and Titus wrote that Class I railroads have long tried to set safety requirements on their own terms, and that enforcing them is the FRA’s job, not the industry’s. They called on Fink to hold the railroads to the transparency conditions the agency itself attached to the waiver.
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