At my museum we have a chance to acquire some trackage. It's not ideal but let's face it, they aren't making any more, and beggers can't be choosers.

So this brings up two questions-
In determining if your railroad is insular, a "highway grade crossing" changes everything. What is this normally considered to be? The rule and definitions seem to indicate this really means "accessible by public crossing" to include any street or pedestrian crossing not privately owned. Is that correct? That seems to change you frm some tracks in the woods to a full fledged rainway. Which goes to:

If you are a new railway, how do you get a certified engineer. How does a non-profit/musuem train new engineers? Is the only practical way to hire currently certified engineers?

The simple answer to your question is that by changing your operation from insular to non-insular you will still not be covered by part 240.

That being said, it will trigger some regulation, what we refer to as "FRA Lite". A decision tree produced by FRA outlining this can be found here: http://www.rpca.com/pdfs/FRATouristRail ... st2011.pdf Some revised hours of service rules went into effect for tourist railroads last year as well.

For those who are covered by part 240, there are provisions for new railroads to bootstrap themselves when they are starting from scratch or acquire new trackage. Even if you hire only certified engineers you still have to submit a program to FRA and follow it. Doing your own training and certification is not an insurmountable obstacle.

The St. Louis Steam Train Association was, in the FRA's eyes, a railroad. We operated almost exclusively on mainline railroads and the Museum of Transportation is connected to the Union Pacific.
After the formalities, we embarked upon a training program. Three of us went through engineer's training school for ABTH and rules. We were then certified as FRA road engineers. We had annual check rides, usually signed off by BNSF MOPs or our own officer. We took the whole thing very seriously of course and had annual rules tests (no piece of cake).
I had to submit monthly and annual inspections of 1522 to the FRA, conduct hydro tests for them and prove we had a safe locomotive.
In addition, our support cars were AMTRAK certified. This is not a cake walk either. The AMTRAK inspector, who was known as Dr. Doom, was impressed with our equipment as was the inspector who went over 1522 with a fine tooth comb prior to our being able to operate under their auspices.
So in short, this is all very doable with a huge amount of work, training and good equipment.
The biggest compliment we were paid was when we were on the road, we were treated as just another train movement.

While I admire the 1522 organization, we are no where near needing that level of sophistication. We're talking more like pulling a caboose or passenger car with a switch engine at speeds approaching a brisk jog, at most. Allow some folks to get some throttle time perhaps, and maybe some paying customers. It would also seem to me once you have a working, legal 'train ride' like this it provides a springboard to becoming more sophisticated-adding an engineer training program in the future, perhaps.

Am I correct that a 'highway grade crossing' includes any public road crossing the right-of-way? I was initially assuming that a 'highway' would be streets under state or federal jurisdiction, this line crosses a couple of city roads that only lead into industrial plants.

If you haul passengers, then you'd better look into the insurance requirements. In fact, you'd better look into them anyway.

Duplicate post deleted.

Russ Fischer's comment on the Part 240 engineer rules is correct. In addition, the regulatory section of the ATRRM website has quite a bit of regulatory information relevant to tourist and museum railroads, including what FRA regulations apply to different kinds of railroads and compliance materials for the new hours of service rules. Be aware that the FRA "decision tree" mentioned in one of the other posts is not current and doesn't include some recent rulemakings.

The best thing to do is contact the FRA and ask them what their requirements are for your operation. We have been deemed insular, except for part 230 and worker protection. And we are connected to the general railway system.

Now if we where to have an incident of some kind, it could possibly change. We also looked at expanding off the property with a public road crossing. And the FRA said that we would only have to add in the sections of grade crossings. Couldn't tell you from memory what those sections are.

That determination raised my eyebrows. I did not press the matter.

However, I always felt that we should do more. So that we were better prepared for the day that the FRA determined we needed to do more.

There is nothing wrong with going 'above and beyond' but you STILL have to know what the minimum is, because A) you have to be above and beyond that in ALL parts, B) more requirements will only add more cost and hassle, and C) you may have to be ready to defend what you are doing. Frankly we don't have much of a budget so we have to start as simple as possible. Speeds on this aren't going to get much past a brisk walk, and the roads in question are pretty low traffic low speed driveways into industrial plants. While that tree may not be 100%, what I am gathering is that we shouldn't be required to have certified engineers (part 240), will have to comply with the track and equipment standards same as most others, and hours of service/hazmat while they do apply, won't matter as there won't be any risk of us running that many hours or hauling hazmat.
One good reason for NOT needing certified engineers, is that the simple option is to use already certified engineers, would interfere with THEIR hours of service. I looked into similar questions with CDL drivers, and the simple answer is when the hours run out and you are supposed to rest, they don't mean at 'your other job', which can and does include volunteer time.

Crossings are the unheralded headache in the world of railroad real estate. They are also a piece of what I do for a living.

My instinct is that the industrial driveways you describe will put you across the regulatory threshold. Before you talk to the the regional Grade Crossing and Trespass Manager at the FRA you have some homework to do. You will need the crossing and station pages from the relevant ETT if its available and a good local map. From your description of the crossings you probably also want a copy of the tax map which will show the public rights-of-way.

First go to http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/Forms.aspx and download a copy of Form 6180-71 U.S. DOT Crossing Inventory Form. Go to http://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/details/L05252 and download a copy of the "US DOT National Highway-Rail Crossing Inventory - Policy, Procedures and Instructions For States and Railroads".

Then go to http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/crossing/xingqryloc.aspx and plug in the information (state county and (former) railroad) for your track. All three filters need to be set for all "All". The reporting level should be set for "Individual Railroads".

What you will get is a list of every crossing in the county on that railroad, be it public or private, open or closed, or at grade or over/under grade. Go over the list and check the boxes on the left hand side for all of the crossings which are on your track. Before you press the Generate Report button do a cut and paste of that portion of the list into a text or spreadsheet file (I use a spreadsheet).

Generate the report. It will be one PDF regardless of the number of crossings. Save it. Print a copy or two. Print a copy of the list you saved earlier.

Next you go out on the track and confirm every one of those crossings. Note all of the corrections to the inventory forms you can find. Lights gates, signage, stop bars painted on the roadway, whatever. If there are any roads, driveways, public foot paths, overpasses or underpasses that are not on the list fill out as best you can one of the 6180-71s you downloaded earlier.

You are now in a position to know what you're talking about with the FRA's GCTM.

The questions you will have to answer are :
1) Are there any crossings at grade over a public road? It doesn't matter what condition the road is in or how often it used or if it even looks like a crossing.
2) Same for a public bike path, trail or sidewalk?
If the answer to either is yes then you cross a public road and that question is answered. If the answer to both is no then we keep going.
3) Do any of the industrial driveways serve a facility where the general public is expected? (See the instructions for Block 27b on the 6180-71) if the answer is yes than it will be treated here as a public crossing.

You will not go wrong treating the crossings as though you are regulated. At some point you will want to bring the warning signs up to spec, make sure there are crossing numbers assigned, post the emergency notification signs. You also need to check the state laws concerning signage, commercial vehicle exemption and so forth. Since you are museum receiving a disconnected segment, common carrier authority has probably been abandoned and Federal Preemption will not apply but you need to be sure.

I'll try to answer any general questions here. If you have something specific back channel me and I'll see if I can help.

Mike Allen

Stop right there.

There are TWO thresholds. There are THREE levels of regulation.

- - - - -

Insular - you are exempt except for 230 Steam.

-------------------Dividing line: you cross a public road

"FRA Lite", only a few regulations apply to you.

-------------------Dividing line: you share tracks with revenue freight cars FOR OTHERS

General System: the entire book applies.

- - - - - - - - end

This is the #1 thing that deters new heritage railway operations. Because some loudmouth at the board meeting, who picked up a copy of 49 CFR at a flea market, and has been reading it one-handed, ignores the boring preambles like "Applicability". It doesn't help that FRA didn't write them in plain talk.

"General system of transportation" = specific rails that OTHER PEOPLE's freight move on FOR HIRE
"Inside an installation" = ”your entire railroad even if it has crossings".

Now reread each of the 2XX.3 Applicability sections again with the proper definitons in your mind, and hopefully you will have an "Aha" moment.

49 CFR 209 Appendix A fully explains this, but it is deep inside a dense tome.

Aside from the above, it explains the rationale behind "insular". The ruling question is whether your railroad could hurt anyone beside an employee, business guest or trespasser. FRA looks at it from USDOT's perspective, whether it can impact public highways, waterways or railroads.

FRA treats heritage railroads "lite"ly because Congress absolutely requires them to do so, as handed down in a law called 49 USC 20103. Laws trump regulations. It's an amazingly short little 1-sentence law, that leaves the details to the FRA, who embraced the concept. In fact they passed down the same "whatever, just be sensible" philosophy to us. Does being exempt from 213 mean we can ignore track? No. We must still have a practice which makes sense for us. FRA will inspect for this.


No, that is very wrong. Unless you are glutted with help and money, going 'above and beyond' in one area means you are neglecting another. You need to focus on actual safety, you should not be mis-ordering your priorities based on regulatory bull that don't even apply to you. That is what Congress and FRA are trying to tell you!


Well, now you know. You DEFINE the minimum, except in a few cases which aren't too rough on heritage railways. Define it wisely.

Some people think government is out to get them and FRA's mission is to catch you, slap you with fines and shut you down. Those people should not be involved in decision making.

Mr. MacDowell is absolutely correct. The reason for the instinct comment is that I know nothing about the property other than what is posted here. If every single one of those driveways has a gate (meaning a 'Don't Come in Here' type of gate, not a crossing gate) on the public side of the track that is normally closed and locked, has all of the appropriate Private Property and Do Not Enter type signage and there are no other crossings whatsoever, including a driveway or a pedestrian crossing where the public boards your equipment, then I can make the argument that the public crossing threshold has not been crossed. Whether I win or not is up to the FRA inspector and that win would be very case specific.

Mike Allen

One thing is clear-calling it a Highway Grade Crossing is misleading. It should be a Public crossing, since it can be for automobiles, pedestrians, equestrians, etc, both at grade and NOT at grade. (Correct?)

Having these answers will defiantly help get this off the ground, there are most certainly people on the board who will object based on 'regulation hassle' including some who others would presume would be experts on the subject based on their backgrounds.

The federal crossing list is interesting, apparently these got migrated into UP's crossings list even tho this was never owned by the UP. Then were listed as Closed, I assume UP has done an audit since the mergers and updated their list.

Thanks,
Robert

I kept it simple before.

If you cross a road, navigable waterway, runway or come within 30 feet of live rail and you are
At grade, not insular.
Overcrossing, not insular because you could fall off your bridge.
Undercrossing, still insular.

As for grade crossings and their supposed publicness: remember the underlying criteria for insularity: you are insular if the only people who can be affected by your operation are
employees,
business guests and
trespassers.
(49 CFR 209 appendix A.)

So your customers using a crossing does not count. Idiot hunters who do not have permission to trespass do not count. No idea if private crossings count since they are business guests.

(And here, DOT relies on the colloquial defenition of trespasser, someone there without your permission, not any peculiar state definition of "it's legal unless posted or you warn them off with special exceptions for hunters and snowmoblilers.")


Those guys are a problem. The worst are the guys who deal professionally with the FRA as a general-system road. Because they know it all, wrong. And they feel the heat on the back of their necks, of FRA enforcement that is nowhere near that strong.


Talk to the FRA in Washington not the local yokels. Your state's FRA rep spends maybe 4 hours a year dealing with non-general-system tourist railways, not enough to really understand the subtleties of these regs and laws. They often tell off-general-system roads things which are not true. Even if they get it right, they are widely misunderstood by the heritage railway rep who himself does not understand the rules.

That's why they have seminars at TRAIN conventions about this sort of thing.

Here's a trick. If you think you are exempt. write to the FRA in Washington and ask for a specific exemption. The FRA will write you back and say they cannot exempt you specifically, because you are already exempt generally because of the nature of your operation.

Does anyone have the official and current source for the applicability flowchart posted above?