Several railroad museums have Member Conduct Codes which appear to be derived from an ARM effort. They include a clause prohibiting "controlled substances" -- a phrase that has very specific meaning. It refers to any medicine NOT legally sellable OTC without a prescription.
OTC == Aspirin, Pe Min Kan Wan, Acai Berry Extract, cranberry juice.
Controlled = prozac, cialis, levitra, nexium, anything they say "ask your doctor" about, as well as of course the illegals, and also insulin, asthma inhalers, heart attack meds, etc.

One version of the clause says "The possession and use of controlled substances on museum property or equipment is prohibited."

The other appends "except as permitted by a licensed medical practitioner and used as presecribed. Other rules may further restrict use of drugs or alcohol."

What do you think? First part only -- or both?

My thoughts: If they are taking doctor prescribed drugs, the doctor needs to be aware that they are operating equipment - locomotives, street cars, backhoes, forklifts, whatever, AND, the doctor gives their blessing to continue these activities, in writing.

Well, the first would eliminate about 80% of the current volunteer pool at most railroad museum operations...Insulin, Asthma inhalers and heart attack meds...hell, members of my family have been on heart meds since they were 16, but fully able to perform their jobs 50 years later. Diabetes can effect those in age from a small child to a senior citizen...same for Asthma.

I agree with the second. If you can legally drive a vehicle, its been common practice that you can work in some capacity in train service. So long as you can drive a vehicle, on said meds, the same thought should apply.

If not, might as well close up shop now. Also, don't you put yourself at risk of funding loss considering some of these meds apply to those considered disabled?... Federal law prohibits discrimination in any job. You could LIMIT what the person does, but to say they are not allowed on the property in possession of or using such meds, could put you at great risk for legal action and funding loss.

It needs to be something that is specific to Controlled substances that are ILLEGAL or impairing someones ability to perform a specific job.

Let's see...

I know many railroad employees as close family friends, professionally, and not so professionally.

Let's see...
The "controlled" substances that they use...and a several of them work for major commuter operators:
Viagra, Cialis, Prozac, Xanax, Insulin, all manner of blood thinners, cholesterol drugs, well...you get the picture.

Controlled substances are rolling past on a mainline near you.

I sleep better at night knowing that railroad employees are allowed to be as screwed up as the rest of us.

No, I think "controlled substances" refers to drugs that have Federal oversight. Oxycontin, Codeine, etc.

Give these guys some credit. They aren't that thick.

Railroad Museums are "Good Old Boys" kind of places and I think that the likelihood of someone being under the influence of alcohol is far greater than some regulated substance like painkillers.

I think you're right - the Controlled Substances Act deals with things which have a potential for abuse. The mere fact that a drug must be prescribed does not mean that it is a controlled substance within the meaning of the Controlled Substances Act.

Excerpts from Controlled Substances Act.

From 21USC802:

In many ways the traditional railroad museum is a "good old boys" kind of place. But alcohol and various prohibited substances can not be tolerated in a railroad/ industrial and public environment of the railroad museum.

One may tolerate, the after-hours share a beer around the fire-pit. But, the participants have to provide the regulation on behalf of the organization to make sure no one then drives after having too many beers or other abuse due to over indulgence. If the participants cannot self-regulate the behavior; then the organization needs to step in and prohibit it.

I believe your second example is pretty close to what is required by the FRA. While the FRA would probably only be interested in employees (volunteers) who are in "covered service", they are very strict regarding language in the rules and the presence of a drug and alcohol program. They have gone over the program at the railroad museum in Oak Ridge with a fine tooth comb and the presentation of the program is part of our rules classes. In some cases, museum operations can be required to perform random drug testing which would include folks who volunteer as engineers and train crew members.

I suspect that would be true of any operation that is covered by the FRA, which would be most tourist railroads. As noted, the FRA has some pretty strict rules for testing, training, compliance, etc etc. You will probably need to hire a testing agency and have a medical review officer. Fortunately, the rules for truck drivers are quite similiar, so even in fairly remote areas there are people who can provide what's needed. They may need to brush up on the specifics for FRA, but the DOT regs should be familiar to them.

Seems like a good topic for ARM/TRAIN to get involved with and provide guidance to the member organizations.

Blind men and the elephant. There are three buckets:
- Entirely insular (no grade crossings);
- On the general system (using rails visited by REVENUE freights); and
- "Not insular but not part of the general system".

Most railway museums and some tourist railways fall in the latter category, where I assure you FRA does not require pre-accident drug testing.

I want to reiterate here that the purpose of the language is to regulate ALL volunteers at a railroad museum, including those in the bookstore, ticket office, curatorial staff, newsletter editor and the like. The language explicitly calls for separate rules for specific crafts, which opens the door for the operating department post-accident testing of which we are all resigned.

Speaking of "blind men and the elephant"... the definition of "controlled substance" varies widely. You may point at one government reg which defines it as one thing; but there are other government regs which say otherwise (within their applicability); and then there is the colloquial definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_substance

I believe you will find that the FRA requires a drug and alcohol program for every railroad which would include a tourist railroad or operating railroad museum. Random testing is a part of that program. Railroads with less than 15 covered service employees are exempt from the random testing as well as some other requirements, but I believe that you must have the written program if you are operating on the general rail system. Revenue freight trains have nothing to do with whether or not you are on the general rail system. If you have a connection with a shortline or a class one railroad even if you never run a freight train on it then you are part of the general rail system. A controlled substance is defined in the FRA. You can find all these requirements in 49CFR Part 219.

Sounds like a challenging project. I guess the first question is why you want to "regulate" all of your volunteers? I don't do drugs, heck I don't even drink, but I still have to wonder why it matters if your unpaid janitor smokes a joint on occasion or the editor knocked back a cold one before opening up his word processor.

I can certainly understand not wanting drugs on the property, but the question is how do you enforce that? Random drug testing? It can tell you if he's had a joint recently, but it can't tell you if he smoked it on duty or on company property. The only way to do that is to catch the person in the act. Otherwise, you're going to have to do drug testing, and then you're regulating their lives both on and off the property. Of course "controlled substances" by your definition, would be illegal anyway, so maybe that's a good thing, but is your operation a museum or a volunteer law enforcement agency?

Sure, you can write up a policy that says "No drugs or alcohol while on duty or on company property!" that's easy, and I would expect most operations do that, but can you enforce it and should you enforce it?

My comments relate only to the non operating positions mentioned above. Operating crew is a totally different matter, and also much easier, at least if you're covered under FRA. You simply follow the CFR's, do the testing required, and the train crew knows, when they sign up, that they will be covered by drug testing. If they don't like it, they don't sign up. I guess you could apply that logic to all positions, but is that the best approach? With safety sensitive positions like train crew, you have the very real possibility of injuring or even killing others. If the newsletter is screwed up, it's not such a big deal.

If you test your volunteers, do not overlook the possibility of a false positive. Depending on how you handle the situation, you could lose a good volunteer that way. This isn't like testing for burnt out light bulbs. It is a chemical analysis with many ways to fail, even if most of those ways are unlikely. There are indignities that I would tolerate from an employer that I would never tolerate from a volunteer organization.

-Mark

That is an excellent point! I handled the drug testing for a construction company, and it's a lot more difficult than it appears. The False Positive is an excellent example. Mathematically speaking, there's a good chance of that happening.

Here's the short version of why: Say you test 1,000 people. 995 are negative for drugs. 5 test postive. Say the drug test has an error rate of 1 in 1,000, pretty good right? Well, yes, but that means that 1 of the 5 positives, or 20% of the positive tests, are in fact bogus. The numbers are totally made up, but the basic concept of a false positives being fairly likely is accurate. So much so that many labs now do "split samples" so you can do a re-test.

Ironically, the less actual drug users you have, the more likely it is that the "positives" you see will be a false positive, since the error rate is always there. Of course a few slip through as negative too, but there's no way to track those.

There's also the postives caused by food and drugs the person can legally use. It's a complicated, and somewhat inexact, science.

Your company medical review officer will be able to explain all of this to you (for a nominal fee of course...)



I suspect you're not alone in that feeling.