My understanding is that some (many? most?) railway museums have a policy of mandatory drug testing of volunteers AFTER an accident. (I won't even go into the ugly business of pre-emptory testing.)

I assert that railway museum volunteers are a fundamentally different demographic than the employees of transit systems, railroads, amusement parks etc.

So I want to know the experience of the various VOLUNTEER railway museums out there. On a post-accident test, has a volunteer ever tested positive for illegal drugs?

If you are connected to the general rail system, you are subject to federal drug testing post "incident". I believe federal law mandates drug testing under certain circumstances such as a fatality.

While I suspect that volunteers may be a different demographic, but its probably better if we prove it with a lower positive rate from the same requirements as regular common carriers.

I would suspect that unless a positive test becomes the subject of litigation, since substance abuse is considered a disease, it would be protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA.

As a practical matter, a negative test would probably be a good thing.

As an aside, I have an acquaintance who owns an industrial preventative care company, with a significant focus on the trucking industry-if you've crossed a guy exhorting truckers to skip the buffet on satellite radio-that's him.

Anyway, he says there's a huge push by insurers, who looked at loss experience and linked a big chunk to a very specific handful of conditions (cardiac, diabetes, etc) and that by 2015,a CDL will likely be conditioned on maintaining normal medical tests (BP, blood glucose levels, Hemoglobin A1c and couple other things). Given the feds want to require reporting to the feds for juvenile body mass index (BMI) for all children from ages 2-18, its seems like a reasonable supposition. It also wouldn't be the first time the insurance industry used the federal bureacracy to limit its collective risk. (The .08 blood alcohol limit now required for states to obtain federal highway funds was heavily lobbied for by automobile insurers)

When I asked him about rail, he said its reasonable to expect "crossover". If you don't have a good enough reason to protect your health-your ticket or the new conductor certification might soon depend on it.

As Robert mentions, unless it's been made public in a court case, discussing that would be a violation of HIPAA, employee privacy and who knows how many other regulations. I was involed with drug testing officer for a construction firm, and I couldn't even discuss test results with the company owner until after they were reviewed, verified and the employee was given a chance to discuss the matter.

A little known fact of drug testing is that there are a lot of false positives, simply due to the number of tests done. I'll use some made up numbers just to show the concept.

Let's say 1 percent of employees in a company are on drugs. So, for every 1,000 tests, 10 of them will test positive. Let's also say there's a 1 in 1,000 chance of a test showing positive when it's actually not. So, in 1,000 tests, 1 false positive shows up.

So now, out of 1,000 tests, you have 11 positives. 10 are legit, and one is not. So, 1 in 11 positive tests are inaccurate. Again, those aren't the real numbers, but you can follow the concept.

So they have strict procedures. We used split vials, if it showed positive, they ran the other vial as a check. Then the employee got to discuss it, with the company physician, confidentially. If there was a vaild explanation for something, say a prescription he'd forgot about, then that was the end of it.

Only after it was proven, verified, and the employee had a chance to challenge the results, did the info get passed on to the company. Even then, it was held in strict confidence, with only those who "needed to know" notified.

I wonder if you'd have better luck talking to the FRA and asking about post accident investigations. At that point it's public record, so nobody is saying something they shouldn't be...

since its volunteerism, you cant exactly fire someone, if you dont have a required entry test for drugs. You might remove someone as a member, but if you know someone, perhaps guide them to help to recover them off drugs.

Being a volunteer and being qualified to operate are two different things. If the person is involved in safety sensative activities (operation, vehicle repair, track repair, etc.) or he/she supervises such people, they are covered by drug and alcohol testing. Having retired from public transit and involved in drug and alcohol testing I can afirm that confidentiality is required so we will not and should not know of such incidents. The notion that railway preservationists as a group are excempt from the anticipated distribution of drug and alcohol abuse through out the general population can not be discounted. The general public has no idea of the impact of the limitations imposed on Commerical Drivers License (CDL) and other transportation license holders in terms of alcohol and drug use, hours of service and penalties incurred even for incidents that happen when off duty. It would be helpful if some type of intermediate and affordable drug and alcohol testing service was available to volunteer museum operations before the strict regulations are imposed upon us. All of this testing in the transportation industry goes back to Gunpowder, Maryland when an impaired Conrail engineer pulled his locomotives out in front of an Amtrak train causing injury, death and distruction. Museum operators need to do everything in their power to prevent our own "Gunpowder" incident. Museums and railroads all operate under the same laws of physics and thus have the same opportunities for incidents. SAFETY FIRST, as the old railroad slogan goes, must always apply.