Report Urges Federal Agencies to Consider Impact of Long Trains on Railroad Safety

Long freight trains require a combination of actions from major freight railroad companies to address heightened safety challenges and operational demands, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report calls on the Federal Railroad Administration, and Congress, to make several sweeping changes which include recommended new methods for crew training and operations.

According to longer trains require more active control for safer handling to prevent risks due to car-weight cargo, including various types and sharper curvatures in railways leading to broken equipment.

According to the report, longer trains require more active control for safer handling to prevent risks due to car-weight cargo, including various types and sharper curvatures in railways leading to broken equipment.

Freight railroads are operating increasingly longer manifest trains over the past two decades to boost cost and efficiency. Manifest trains haul freight in railcars of different weights and sizes. This number and mix of cars can add to the extreme forces that moving trains experience, stressing equipment and creating handling challenges for train crews—which increase the potential for derailments, the report shows.

Following are some of the recommendations in the report:

No 1. The Federal Railroad Administration should revise the Risk Reduction Program to address all of major changes in their RRPs to ensure safety in railroads and be written in a way to address any future changes.

No. 2. The Federal Railroad Administration should stand up separate working groups under the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee tasked with evaluating and providing advice, including on methods and technologies that can be implemented to improve the capabilities, competencies and training of crews and other railroad employees

No. 3. Congress should direct the FRA to obtain data on an ongoing basis from railroads on blocked highway-rail grade crossings.

No. 4. Congress should empower the FRA to enforce the performance of host freight railroads in giving preference to Amtrak passenger trains on single-track route segments where there is a mismatch between the length of freight trains being operated and the infrastructure on the route segment to accommodate them without delaying Amtrak trains.

Another safety concern called out in the reoprt is railroad crossings impacting surrounding neighborhoods, depriving access to schools, work and other communicity activities. The report recommends the FRA implement a system with traffic data collection to effectively manage busy roads and impact, and also gives its data to locals for a better understanding of the railroad system.

It also advocates penalizing to those who don’t follow a structured plan for railroad crossings and also would share its data with all freight companies for better timing understanding.