During my 18 year career on shortlines in North Carolina, Maryland and Pennsylvania, I never found any FRA inspectors to be anything less than 100% professional and helpful. Even while working on a marginally operational railroad, the FRA worked with me to bring the railroad into minimal compliance. The only time I recall having a problem with a federal inspector was when a newly-minted inspector who had never seen a spring-frog switch and could not understand how it worked. Those I worked with all had lengthy experience working in the industry before becoming FRA employees, and most of them knew a whole lot more than I did. I was always willing to learn from them.

Speaking of reading comprehension... have you read the regs? Really.
Start with 49 USC 20103, which is a law, not a reg.
Then read 49 CFR 209 Appendix A: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32680&p=169462
Then read the FRA Tourist Railway letter and decision tree http://www.fra.dot.gov/pages/2348.shtml
Then read each of the 49 CFR 2xx regs, and pay close attention to the Applicability section of each reg.

What you will see is an awful lot of laissez-faire, at least toward non-general-system roads.


Prople here mainly needs to work on understanding the regs. Right now, the usual thing is people getting overexciyed about regs, and "helping" each other comply with regs they are exempt from. This is a serious mistake. Money and volunteer time are finite, and work spent on unnecessary compliance results in other things not being done.

No, my groups do not have a designated compliance person. They do have safety training people however. They also keep written records of most of their activities. Despite being exempt in those areas.

"Audited" isn't really the right word for off-general-system operations. The FRA guy basically wants to see if (or rather, if not) your organization is so incompetent that it needs to be shut down with an Emergency Order. Once he sees evidence to the contrary, he is done. He is not particular as to what that evidence is. Good written records will do, but so will evidence of systematic and careful work.

Generally, in these exempt areas, FRA doesn't want you spending resources on compliance, i.e. doing a bunch of stuff for no reason except compliance. They want you to focus on your business, and they want to see that you do the things a competent shop is ordinarily going to do.

Of course, none of that is true for steam operations. 230.2 reads quite different from other "Applicability" sections, and even if you are one of the rare cases that is exempt, you'll simply be under the jurisdiction of some other, less competent agency, and FRA will STILL have E.O. authority and may inspect for that purpose.


No, we don't... and no, it wouldn't.

There is NOT senseless over-regulation of non-general-system heritage railroads. There is NOT routine violation and nudge-wink blind-eye by the regulators. Instead there are exemptions specifically cut out. You see foot boards and poling pockets (and poles) on a museum locomotive, because they are legal on a museum locomotive. You see absolutely no reflectorization whatsoever on a 1905 wood side boxcar, because it is EXEMPT because it is not in work train service. Etc. You see no ADA modifications - EXEMPT. (note that equipment is exempt from ADA; operations are not. You MUST ALWAYS do whatever is readily achievable [easy] to accommodate the handicapped.) It all goes back to the competence test: are you competent for who you are? A museum that reflectorizes exhibits is incompetent.

Per the original request, Jeff, SRC undergoes a regular, operational audit every three years. During the audit a team from the FRA reviews all of our operational records. The audit usually takes three days. At the end of the audit, we conference over exceptions that FRA has found, and every railroad will have exceptions. Most of what FRA finds I would characterize as "mid-course adjustments" - compliance adjustments that express their practices and/or the intent of the regulations. We make a list of the exceptions and immediately set about correcting them. We then undertake program review from time to time to ensure that we are remaining in compliance.

Of course this is all in addition to new NPRM's and the implementation of new requirements.

I would agree with Jeff's assessment. How anyone could construe it as accusing operators of not following regulations is a mystery.

My take, is that the original poster made a simple inquiry asking for examples of how and who documents compliance in an organization. Even if your compliance exceeds the regulation, you have to back it up with solid record keeping. You could have flawless Class 2 track at your operation, but still have a FRA inspector come in and ask to see your track inspection records, with the dates and signature of the inspector, to verify that your compliance is documented. You could be the safest operator out there, and have gone above and beyond what the regulation calls for. But, without a written record of it being done, how do you prove it?

These industries are differently regulated because accountability is wildly different between them. Trucking is highly anonymous and there is an unreliable chain of accountability back to a financially responsible party. An owner-operator can be so far in debt that he's effectively judgment proof. At extreme, some Mexican trucker could cause a horrible wreck, hitch back to Mexico and disappear, with no way to ever hold him accountable.

It's all the opposite with railroads of any size. All their capital investment is right there on the land, no way to hide it or move it. Lawyers "know where they live". Turnover of management is quite slow. As a result the industry is either a) ultra-deep-pocket Class I's, or b) shortlines/museums in a rather small and closed brotherhood where everybody knows everybody.

It's as different as enforcing the rules at a Raiders game vs. a 4th-level meditation retreat. Or 4chan vs. RyPN.

I don't know about that. I have a close friend who is a transportation manager for a large, vertically integrated food distributor. He says that the new regs surrounding drivers, CDLs and tracking is removing the anomnymity. Drivers and trucking companies are now tracked by a system of accruing factors that "travel" with a license and a company. At a certain level of accrual a company or a driver can be saddled with different consequences - the most obvious being loss of a CDL by an individual. And indivdual accruals can give a black eye to a company. Personally, I can see the benefit in this given your example, Robert. But it is changing the face of trucking and the ethos of the truck driver.

Wow. That is cultural change.