Their railroad is insular, hence no FRA. However, by MI state law, they must operate under the MI amusement rules and, for any steamers, ASME boiler codes. I'm not a steam guy but as I understand it, the ASME codes are even more "restrictive" than FRA rules. As long as they follow the rules and are inspected by those rules, there should be no problems. I'd bet the Henry Ford is on top of things.

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Reading through that list, one can conclude that its authors at FRA were largely concerned whether an incident on the railway under consideration for insularity could have an impact on some other commercial transportation service unrelated to that railway, such as:
• A train colliding with a motor vehicle at an at-grade public crossing.
• A train colliding with another railroad’s equipment at a rail-rail crossing
• A train falling off a bridge and either landing on a public road or landing in a body of water with commercial navigation
• A train wreck or other incident that is close enough to another railway to possibly foul the other operation’s tracks.

If any of those apply to your railroad – no, sorry, you are not insular.

Arguably, the list is incomplete. For example, if your tracks are directly alongside of a public highway – for discussion purposes, say within 30 feet of the middle of a traffic lane - but don’t cross the highway, are you still insular? A strict interpretation says your insularity is not compromised since you don't cross the road. But a rational interpretation says that if your derailed train could end up on the highway, the consequences are pretty much the same as if your train fell off a bridge onto the same highway. Hence, your insularity might actually be up for interpretation by the FRA.

Curiously, insularity is not compromised by what could happen if an out-of-control motor vehicle lands on your tracks. Hence, while railway bridges over highways passing under your tracks make you non-insular, insularity is not compromised by highway bridges crossing above your tracks. The FRA apparently doesn’t concern themselves with failure of the highway system, only with failure of the railway system. However, it does seem odd how FRA’s regs seemingly don’t care whether a train wreck underneath a highway bridge might knock out a bridge pier.

With respect to railway/highway crossings, a different part of the FRA regs address whether a crossing is “public”. The part of the regs which address grade crossing inventory data (those little blue signs) is very specific that a public crossing is one where the highway is both (1) owned and maintained by a public agency (State DOT, municipality, etc.) and (2) is open to use by anybody, viz:


Key in the above is that both ownership and use dictate whether a crossing is “public”. Hence, if there’s a railway crossing within a secured municipal facility, such as a public works department maintenance depot, and the general public can’t reasonably be expected to get to that location without trespassing, it would likely be a private crossing, public ownership of the roadway notwithstanding.

A murky situation results from a rail crossing of a privately-owned roadway which is very commonly driven upon by the general public - say the entrance to the parking lot of a retail business. 49CFR § 234.401 says it isn't a public crossing, since the road is not maintained by a public authority. But 49CFR § 234.3 says only public crossings compromise insularity. This suggests that a publicly-used highway crossing could exist on an insular railway, which sort of defies logic.

As an aside, note how “pathway” crossings are included in the above. A municipally-owned and publicly accessible pedestrian/bike trail across your tracks would therefore be a “public” crossing and hence apparently compromise insularity. Not clear is whether it’s still a public crossing if the bike trail is owned by a private non-profit organization, as many trails are.

Note also how the CFR says commercial navigation under your railroad compromises insularity. No commercial navigation? Insularity isn’t compromised. Only non-commercial navigation? Apparently not compromised, although there might be some arcane hair-splitting concerning what constitutes commercial and non-commercial navigation in some totally different part of the CFRs. My museum, which is non-insular due to two public highway crossings, thankfully has no undertrack bridges over anything, so I’m not going to dig into that bag of worms.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

I didn't see it mentioned above but the Greenfield Village operation at the Henry Ford is, and always has, been considered to be a "in-plant railroad" (there may be a better legal term) and has been operated like any other installation in a Ford production plant.

I do suppose that one could "what if" and iterprit the regulation that way, but in my 25 years with FRA, that was never the intent. As outlined in the regulation, "A tourist operation is considered insular if its operations are limited to a separate enclave in such a way that there is no reasonable expectation that the safety of any member of the public—except a business guest, a licensee of the tourist operation or an affiliated entity or a trespasser—would be affected by the operation.."

I believe that FRA understands that the insularity criteria will tend to sort out the insular theme parks and museums. FRA, as nessessarry would conduct a case-by-case analysis in certain close situations.

"The Henry Ford" (which is the name of the complex that includes the museum and greenfield village) is an independent non-profit and is not affiliated with Ford Motor Company.


For those that haven't visited - Greenfield Village is a historical village that includes many historic buildings. You can visit many of the buildings and learn from history guides, ride in a model T car, visit a working farm, etc. It's a really great place to visit.

A standard gauge railroad circles the park and they have 3 operating coal burning steam locomotives that are maintained in a historic roundhouse with working arm-strong turntable. They also have a working coal-tower - the only one that is actually used in the country.

Great place to visit - highly reccomend. If you go during an event weekend, they will often run 2 trains during the busy parts of the day.

I wasn't limiting my thoughts solely to tourist/museum operations. Rather, I was pointing out how the CFR can be vague, ambiguous and sometimes even contradictory on these topics. If, from your experience, you can provide illumination on some of specific points I mentioned, by all means please do so. We all want to learn, which is why this forum exists. Thanx in advance and please everyone have a safe day!

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

Understood and point taken. I can't even pretend to get into what the government lawyers were thinking when they thought all this stuff up...:)

Mike Ramsey

Mr. Ramsey has been more than helpful on the second cousin to insularity issues; it's whether or not you are connected to the General System, which is the second level of regulation that tourist/excursion/museums are concerned with and frequently debate.

And, encouraged us to get a WRITTEN review of an unusual situation with the FRA before you assume you can define the tea leaves on your own, which for regulatory and insurance purposes, is darn good advice. And applies for insular designation as well. Even if the 'wheels of God' grind slowly in such situations.

Most unusual one I had was a review of a proposed excursion-only operation that had a diamond across an active freight-only shortline (non-affiliated) inside yard limits - but no other connection and no regular interchange. General system connected or not? FRA came back, in writing, that it was not. Which only proves the ambiguity part as related.

As I understand things:

As a tourist railroad only, simply being connected to the general system and having a switching agreement in place with your connecting railroad doesn't matter as far as insular/non-insular goes (unless you run off your property onto the general system then neither applies).

Crossing another railroad at grade, connection or not, would certainly make any hope of being insular fly right out the window at a phenomenal velocity.

If wrong, please clarify.

That is correct, based on the current FRA policy.

Keep in mind, that when there are certain unusual circumstances, the FRA could make a determination to recommend a waiver if applicable or even exercise enforcement discretion.

For example, a tourist railroad crossing the CSX main line at grade vs one crossing a little used yard or industrial track on a short line may be looked at differently, based on risk and the circumstances.

MDR

Actually, the authority of the FRA to regulate a rail operation is not limited merely by its own policy but also by the Constitution of the United States. The FRA exists because the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power "to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states..." An operation that does not fit under this clause is under the authority of the state and not federal government according to the Constitution. The rail operations that are exempt from FRA regulation would be those that are not legally determined to be a part of interstate commerce. How the specifics of that legal determination came about I am sure was a long and winding road.

That operation in Indiana has had two separate instances of track removal. The first was done about the same time the FRA was working through how to regulate these type of operations (1995 or so). There was joint trackage (CIN MP67.7-MP69) with an adjacent general system freight railroad, which was moving freight from that scrap yard. Interpretations at the time landed at the mutually agreed solution that the volunteer operation could continue to operate if not connected to the general system operations. The solution at the time was to pull three rail lengths of both rails until enough engineers could be certified. That certification process was completed over a year or two of time, and the rails were put back in about 1997. Not long after that the scrap year customer ceased rail shipments, and the operating agreement with the adjacent railroad expired.
In 2000 (iirc), the museum operation moved from the makeshift depot at MP 67.6, to a new structure at MP 68.5. For clairity, the museum owns the track from MP50-MP69.
In 2002, there was a significant derailment on a loaded holiday train due to a rail that broke under the locomotive, resulting in the derailment of the second, third, and fourth cars. While there had been regulatory involvement for several years, this event brought a significant amount of scrutiny to the operation. While the investigation by the FRA found that the derailment was not due to any violations, they noted the engineer certification program as unlawful, and was advised to cease that immediately or action would be taken to force compliance.

For those scratching your heads, yes, the museum operation was told it was going to be shut down if engineer certification was not started in 1995, and then told the operation would be shut down if we didn't stop engineer certification in 2002. The clarity comes from understanding the law and the exceptions as listed earlier in Mr. Ramsey's post. This is both from the railroad and from the regulator stand points. The operation of equipment over the joint trackage with General System operations drives both operating entities to comply with General System regulations within that trackage. When the freight traffic stopped, so did the joint operations, and so did the authorization/requirement of exercising components of the Part 240 engineer certification, among other things. The museum operation became a non insular non regulated entity, and needed to be treated as such by both the museum and regulators.

Fast forward a few years, and the adjacent freight railroad had determined that they wanted to serve that scrap yard again. The museum operation now had 0.8 of mile of what would be overlapping operations, rather than just a few hundred feet of overlap to utilize the North end of the yard. The effort and cost of certifying the large number of engineers, as well as all of the other related general system requirements are significant, and simply not worth the revenue that would be generated from the infrequent movement of scrap loads out of the scrap yard. The museum took and maintains the position of not agreeing to a trackage agreement over that stretch of track. Incidentally the scrap yard had changed hands a time or two and advised they were not interested in shipping by rail anyway. The disagreement between the track owner and the fright railroad resulted in litigation between the two operations to settle a locomotive delivery issue and a continued impasse that resulted in the removal of the connecting switch and some track owned by the freight railroad. While the museum operation has expressed interest in service and general system access, the two entities have not been able to reach a mutually beneficial agreement over the last 18 or so years. While additional legal action may correct the refusal of service by the railroad, it's just cheaper to haul stuff by truck when needed.

The moral of my long winded post is that every operation needs to read and understand the FRA code, and engage their local FRA representatives to discuss and understand how the organization's operations are viewed by regulators as well as how changing operations might initiate any regulatory response. This thread hopefully is aiding in that endeavor. My other point is that each operation needs to understand their legal rights about what an adjacent operation can and can't do on your track and be thoughtful and deliberate about what agreements/decisions are made. Regarding PMC's comment, I can certainly understand how it looks short sited to not have the freight customer, but one might also consider the volunteer labor better allocated to restoration, training, maintenance as a "non regulated" entity. Some things are still necessary even if not required by regulations, while the lifting of some of the other burdens allows us to utilize our resources in a way that better enables the organization to pursue it's mission. For example, the $15k we didn't spend on new ties for that scrap yard switch (switch has been removed) will paint Lima Hamilton ex-Armco #709 in her as delivered livery this spring.

I hope this is helpful in some way.

Ryan Scott

Can you clarify specifically why the engineer-training program was 'unlawful'?

Surely an engineer-training program based on safe principles wouldn't be a concern, and it would be helpful to learn why the whole program was abolished rather than just remediating part of its content that might no longer apply to the revised operation.

FRA Engineer Certification is a regulation is not a law, but as a regulation it would certainly be non compliant. It sounds like the railroad in question continued with their FRA engineer certification program after they were no longer part of the general system, and it was no longer required. The issue is that FRA Part 240/242 certification programs are also tied to FRA Part 219 Drug/Alcohol testing requirements, which can't be administered on a non-general system railroad. These FRA certifications are consistent and if applicable, transferable for all general systems railroads including the Part 219 requirements.

In this case the circumstances changed and so did the regulatory requirements. Federal drug testing as outlined in a FRA Certification program is no longer applicable or allowed. With that said, there is no reason way the railroad could not use the certification program as a template, using company drug testing requirements and removing any reference to FRA so as to clarify that it is not a FRA program.