The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sided with the BLET on August 26 when it denied a joint waiver request by five railroads seeking to change operating rules in the event of unplanned Positive Train Control (PTC) outages.
The BLET filed formal written comments with FRA in opposition to the waiver request on August 19. In a news report last week, BLET characterized the request by the five railroads — BNSF Railway, Caltrain, New Mexico Rail Runner Express, Norfolk Southern, and South Florida Regional Transportation Authority — as a backdoor attempt to weaken PTC safety rules without going through proper regulatory channels.
Each railroad has in place FRA-approved Positive Train Control Safety Plans (PTCSP), which outline PTC safety practices. A procedure is in place to file a request for amendment (RFA) to the safety plan, but it is typically used to address minor issues such as routine PTC software updates. The five carriers, however, attempted to use the RFA process to request wholesale waivers of major PTC safety regulations.
FRA denied the carrier request as “overly broad and indefinite.” FRA also noted and explicitly agreed with several of BLET’s arguments in rejecting the carriers’ request. FRA wrote in part, “the large-scale policy change proposed in the joint RFA warrants a rulemaking, during which FRA could thoroughly consider all relevant factors and stakeholder input…”
“This is an example of what we can do for our members in the regulatory world when we get proper notice and have opportunity to comment, but as we know, it is not always this way,” BLET Vice President and National Legislative Representative Vince Verna said. “We need to continue to educate our members that Notice and Comment style rulemaking and the waiver constraints in Part 211 are critical to preserving the integrity of railroad safety rules.”
The FRA’s rejection of the railroads’ request can be found here (www.regulations.gov).