Legislation introduced in Congress, with support from BLET, the Teamsters Rail Conference and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, would put into federal law the current long-standing requirement that railroad tracks are visually inspected twice a week while requiring railroads to use automated track inspection (ATI) technology as a supplement to human visual track inspections. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Secure Tracks Act in the Senate while Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives.
Teamster Rail Conference affiliate Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) has taken the lead in fighting for the bill, which comes as Class I railroads are pursuing automated technology that would cut visual inspections performed by humans by 50 to 75 percent.
BLET National President Mark Wallace, in his role as President of the Teamsters Rail Conference, advocated for both BLET and BMWED members when he discussed ATI in recent meetings with Sen. Baldwin and Rep. Titus. Wallace warned against overreliance on technology and described how visual track inspections are necessary to keep BLET members safe from derailments caused by track defects.
ATI operates as a giant measuring stick, it only detects — and is designed to detect — a fraction of the issues that can lead to a derailment. For this reason, BMWED President Tony Cardwell has said that while ATI can greatly assist in the work track inspectors perform daily, it cannot replicate or replace the insight and expertise of BMWED track inspectors.
Text of the Secure Tracks Act can be found here.
For more information, please visit the BMWED website.