HR 9074 Introduced
2-Person Freight Crew
Last month, Rep Sykes (D,OH) introduced HR 9074, the Safe Freight Act of 2024. The bill would mandate the use of 2-person rail crews for most freight train operations and provides limited exceptions to the requirement. No new funding is authorized by the bill.
The bill would add a new §20154, Freight train crew size safety standards, to 49 USC,
Definitions
Subsection (d) provides 2 definitions of key terms used in the section. One of the terms, ‘high hazard train’, is of specific interest here.
Train Crew Size
Subsection (a) provides that “no Class I railroad carrier may operate a freight train without a 2-person crew consisting of at least 1 appropriately qualified and certified conductor and 1 appropriately qualified and certified locomotive engineer.”
Subsection (b) provides exceptions to that requirement:
Train operations on track that is not main line track;
Locomotives performing assistance to a train that has incurred mechanical failure or lacks the power to traverse difficult terrain, including traveling to or from the location where assistance is provided;
Locomotives that are not attached to any equipment or are attached only to a caboose, and travel not farther than 50 miles from the point of origin of such locomotive, and
Train operations staffed with fewer than a 2-person crew at least 1 year before the date of the enactment of the Safe Freight Act of 2024, except if the Secretary determines that such operations do not achieve an equivalent level of safety as would result from compliance with the requirement.
As a technical matter, the ‘and’ at the end of (b)(1)(C) means that the exception applies only if all four standards apply. I suspect that the crafters should have used the word ‘or’ instead.
Paragraph (b)(2) provides an exception to the exception provided in (b). The earlier exemption will not apply to:
A high-hazard train; or
A train with a total length of at least 7,500 feet.
Current Regulations
On April 9th, 2024, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published a final rule that established a 2-person crew requirement for most freight railroads. It established Subpart G of 49 CFR Part 218 as the regulations covering crew size. That subpart contains a much more complex list of exemptions than provided in this legislation. As such, this bill should contain a requirement for FRA to revise Subpart G to conform to the revised requirements described here. I would suggest that a new subsection (e) be added to the proposed §20154:
“(e) Within 90-days of the enactment of this section, the Secretary of the Department of Transportation will initiate a rulemaking to modify the Subsection G of 49 C.F.R. Part 218 to comply with the requirements of this section.”
Moving Forward
Sykes is a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered by the Committee. Having said that, with the FRA recently completing a rule making on the subject, I would expect the Committee leadership to resist revisiting this subject until there has been a chance to see how the recent regulatory change works in practice.