November 2004
Transit new-starts funding set to rise 9%Awaiting the expected signature of the President is appropriations legislation containing $7.644 billion for FY 2005 transit funding, 5.2% higher than the FY 2004 appropriation. In two areas of particular importance to rail interests, Congress earmarked $1.316 billion for new starts, a 9.2% increase, and $1.199 billion for fixed-guideway modernization, an increase of 0.4%.
KCS wins authority to control Tex MexThe Surface Transportation Board has given its conditional approval to control by the Kansas City Southern of the Texas Mexican Railway. The conditions include monitoring of operations at the Laredo Bridge by the STB’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement. STB also said that in the event KCS acquired control of the Mexican railroad TFM, "we reserve the right to conduct oversight to examine the effects on transportation within the United States."
CN, UP will shift traffic away from Chicago Over the next three months, CN and Union Pacific will implement "a structured plan to direct rail traffic flows through the most efficient interchange locations." The plan is designed to reduce congestion at the Chicago gateway, improve network fluidity, and generate new capacity. It will work this way:
• Traffic moving between Western Canada and Texas will be consolidated and exchanged at Superior, Wis., avoiding the Chicago terminal and reducing handling en route.
• Wisconsin traffic between Texas and Arkansas will move in a new run-through service to Salem in southern Illinois, rather than being interchanged in Chicago.
• Traffic between eastern Canada and the south-central United States will be interchanged at Memphis instead of Chicago.
FRA talks tough in TexasThe Federal Railroad Administration has entered into a one-year Safety Compliance Agreement with Union Pacific in which UP must resolve safety problems FRA says it found at the railroad’s San Antonio (Texas) Service Unit during an investigation undertaken in July 2004.
FRA said that UP "failed in its implementation and management oversight of its Field Testing Exercise (FTX) Program, which tests train crew compliance with railroad operating rules and other Federal safety regulations." FRA came to this conclusion based on a review that included "federal inspectors riding UP trains, overseeing UP inspectors perform their work, conducting FRA’s own inspections, and auditing the UP FTX Program."
Under the terms of the agreement, UP must immediately begin a "thorough and vigorous program to re-instruct all railroad testing managers on the entire contents and requirements of its FTX Program; conduct monthly analysis of FTX Program data, formulate a monthly plan to correct identified problems, and require headquarters in Omaha audit the plan on a quarterly basis; and assign an official to be directly responsible for the implementation of the agreement."
FRA added that it has reassigned inspectors from other regions to Texas "to supplement existing staff in inspecting and monitoring UP adherence to this agreement." Also, "should FRA determine . . . that the Compliance Agreement is not being fulfilled by UP, a stronger Compliance Order will be issued without challenge from UP." This would be "enforceable in Federal Court, where top railroad officials could be held personally liable."
Shippers: Get your own BNSF web pageBurlington Northern and Santa Fe has become the first railroad in the industry to offer its customers a fully customizable, personalized Web interface. Between now and early 2005, current BNSF customers will be migrated to the new personalized page at BNSF.com. Along with customization, BNSF says its enhanced website" provides customers with an integrated interface which will provide real-time alerts as shipping information changes. Customers can choose to receive these alerts by e-mail or on a wireless device—eliminating the need to logon to the website for shipment status changes."
"Every customer has different needs," says John Lanigan, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "With one simple click, BNSF.com allows each customer to pick the content they want and how they want to see it—making doing business with BNSF easier, faster and more efficient."
CN, CPR expand network initiativesBuilding on a recent co-production agreement to increase capacity in the Vancouver, B.C., region, CN and Canadian Pacific Railway have added three new network initiatives they say will improve transit times and asset utilization in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.
A slot-sharing, directional-running arrangement that has been tested over the past few months has CPR moving eight trains a week of bulk commodities over CN’s 550-mile line between Edmonton and the CPR network at Coho, B.C., near Kamloops, using CPR locomotives and CN crews. At Coho, CPR trains enter already-established directional running trackage that sees all trains of both railways move westbound through the Fraser Valley on the CN and eastbound on the CPR.
Directional running over about 100 miles of parallel CPR and CN track in Ontario between Waterfall, near Sudbury, and Parry Sound will allow eastbound trains to operate over the CN and westbound trains over the CPR, improving network fluidity in that corridor.
A haulage arrangement, with CN freight moving over about 300 miles of CPR track in Ontario between Thunder Bay and a junction with CN at Franz using CPR’s route north of Lake Superior, will permit the rationalization of about 200 miles of CN secondary track in Ontario between Thunder Bay and Longlac. CN says it will maintain transportation service to affected shippers.
NYCT leads commuter roads in fare share of costsNew York City Transit riders are paying a higher percentage of the cost of their rides than users of the Long Island and Metro-North commuter railroads.
Statistics posted by the New York MTA on its website show agency cost recovery in two ways: One is the farebox operating ratio, which approximates the percentage of operating expenses paid for by fares and fare reimbursements. The other is the farebox recovery ratio, which includes long-term (such as debt service) as well as immediate costs.
In this year’s first eight months, NYC Transit posted a farebox operating ratio of 61.4% and a farebox recovery ratio of 47.5%. By comparison, the Long Island Rail Road reported a farebox operating ratio of 46.9% and a recovery ratio of 34.9%, and Metro-North came in with a farebox operating ratio of 57.1% and a recovery ratio of 44.12%.
Schneider unveils 53-foot intermodal containerSchneider National introduced a new high-capacity container at the North American Intermodal Expo in San Antonio Nov. 15. The container is 53 feet long and 100-3/8 inches wide, with the potential for 10% to 15% more palletized cargo than standard containers. Schneider National worked with Stoughton Trailers and Wabash National to develop the new, stackable intermodal unit. After testing this fall, the company plans to put 200 of the containers into service in 2005.
White collar positions shrink as operating jobs grow Class I railroads employed 158,020 workers in mid-September, up 2.28% from September 2003, according to the Surface Transportation Board. The biggest increase by far was in transportation (train and engine) employment, which rose by 8.32% to 65,405. Decreases were recorded in three categories: executives, officials, and assistants, down 5.68% to 8,714; professional and administrative, down 5.51% to 13,575; and transportation (other than train and engine), down 1.90% to 7,441. Maintenance-of-way and structures employment rose 0.79% to 34,104, and maintenance-of-equipment and stores employment was up 0.83% to 28,781.
UP: Why inspect trains twice?TFM trains that come north across the U.S./Mexico border through the Laredo, Tex., gateway and are picked up by Union Pacific are inspected twice within a distance of nine miles—first by TFM at Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side, then by UP at Laredo. Approximately eight trains per day are affected.
UP says the duplication is unnecessary and is asking the Federal Railroad Administration to grant a waiver that would allow UP to accept the TFM inspections and continue moving trains north through San Antonio, Tex., saving transit time, freeing-up blocked crossings in Laredo, and reducing inspection costs by about $2 million annually. UP says TFM crews are thoroughly trained in FRA and AAR inspection and interchange regulations and practices for mechanical components (wheels, axles, brakes, bearings, couplers, carbodies, safety appliances), so safety will not be compromised. UP says the work Mexican inspectors perform matches U.S. standards.
Officials in San Antonio, where UP has had several accidents in recent months, are questioning UP’s plans.
Shortly after Mexico’s railroads were privatized in the late 1990s, the AAR formed a committee consisting of representatives from U.S. Class I’s, Texas-Mexican Railway, TFM, Ferromex, TTX, and several carbuilders and component suppliers to conduct training seminars in AAR and FRA practices for Mexican railway mechanical personnel. The training seminars for several years were co-sponsored by Railway Age magazine.
Total rail fatalities up 8.3% in eight monthsRailroads reported 600 fatalities to the Federal Railroad Administration in this year’s first eight months, an increase of 8.3% over the 554 deaths recorded in the same period last year. Trespassing was blamed for 315 fatalities, down 0.9% from the 318 trespasser fatalities in the 2003 period. Grade crossing collisions caused 255 deaths, an increase of 19.7% over the 213 recorded in the prior-year period.
Statistics posted on the FRA website show that a total of 9,052 accidents/incidents were reported in January-August 2004, down 3.5% from the same period a year earlier. Train accidents increased 2.7% to 2,057, with 170 attributed to collisions (up 22.3% from the 2003 period) and 1,488 to derailments (up 3.8%). Yard accidents rose 3.0% to 1,120.
Gerald Davies to retire as KCS operating chiefKansas City Southern says it expects to find a new chief operating officer by year’s end, when Gerald K. Davies plans to retire as the company’s executive vice president and COO. Davies will continue to serve as a consultant to KCS in its efforts to acquire full ownership of Mexico’s Grupo TFM Railway and assist in the integration of TFM into KCS. Davies came to KCS in 1999 after holding senior marketing positions at CSX Transportation, Burlington Northern, and Canadian National.
Greenbrier earnings soar as backlog growsIn its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended Aug. 31, Greenbrier Companies earned net income of $8.0 million on revenues of $202 million generated largely by the production of 3,000 railcars. In the comparable period last year, the company posted earnings of $3.3 million on revenues of $137 million and delivered 2,100 new cars.
For the full fiscal year, Greenbrier reported net income of $20.8 million vs. $3.4 million in the prior year. Revenues grew to a record $729 million, up 37% over FY 2003, and deliveries rose to a record 10,800 units, compared with 6,500 in FY 2003.
In announcing the results, which exceeded Wall Street expectations, Greenbrier President and CEO William A. Furman said the company sees continued market strength in North America and Europe into FY 2006.
RailPower, Wabtec partner on Green GoatRailPower Technologies Corp., developer of the Green Goat hybrid switcher locomotive, has entered into an agreement with Wabtec Corp. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, MotivePower Inc., for component supply, engineering, and manufacturing and assembly.
Under the terms of the agreement, Wabtec will source and supply the majority of components for RailPower locomotives, and MPI will assemble RailPower locomotives at its Boise, Idaho, plant. MPI will also assist RailPower with integration engineering and assembly of new RailPower products, including a hybrid branch line locomotive.
RailPower called the agreement a "natural evolution" of its relationship with Wabtec, stating that it already purchases locomotive components from various Wabtec divisions, among them cabs and control cabinets used on pre-production and early production Green Goats manufactured in Calgary.
Following the Wabtec agreement, RailPower announced that it has a letter of intent from an unnamed Class I for 35 Green Goats, to be delivered over a four-year period beginning in 2005. This is the company’s first multi-year order. To date, RailPower says it has orders, both firm and conditional, for 78 Green Goats, including two lease demonstrator units. The company also has engineering facilities in Erie, Pa., under the RailPower Hybrid Technologies Corp. name.
BNSF recognizes four short linesBurlington Northern and Santa Fe, which connects with more than 200 short lines, regionals, and switching/terminal railroads and which derives more than 15% (about $1.2 billion) of its revenue from traffic originated or terminated on small roads, has recognized four of its small-road partners with its first-ever Short Line Partnership in Growth Awards.
The awards were presented to the Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway, Monroeville, Ala.; Burlington Junction Railway, West Quincy, Mo.; Modesto & Empire Traction Co.; Modesto, Calif.; and Toppenish, Simco & Western, Wapato, Wash., during BNSF’s ninth annual Short Line Conference last month.
"All of our short line connections have played a role in our joint success in 2004," said Pete Rickershauser, BNSF vice president-Network Development. "These awards recognize the resourcefulness and achievements of those short lines that have gone beyond our expectations through innovation, determination, and hard work. We envision BNSF as a high-density main line network interchanging with a lower-density feeder network of short lines operating at low cost with a high level of service. Short lines are an integral part of realizing our BNSF network vision. They provide an intense customer focus, resourcefulness, operational flexibility, and a local presence in their communities. "We see their role expanding in the future as they do more gathering and distribution, and aggregate blocks of cars for integration into BNSF’s network of main-line trains."
CN, CPR, NS announce route-service agreementCN, Canadian Pacific, and Norfolk Southern announced an agreement Nov. 8 that will speed up the movement of freight between Canada and the Eastern U.S. and put more trains on CPR’s under-utilized Delaware & Hudson route.
The announcement said that under the new arrangement, which takes effect Nov. 19, "CN-NS traffic destined for the Eastern U.S. will move in CPR trains on CPR’s line between Rouses Point, N.Y., and Saratoga Springs, under a freight haulage arrangement between CPR and NS. This CN-NSR traffic will then move in NS trains over CPR’s line between Saratoga springs and the NS connection near Harrisburg, Pa., under a trackage rights agreement between CPR and NSR." This will cut 330 miles from the current routing used by CN and NS through the Buffalo, N.Y., gateway.
Teamsters now represent 42% of rail unionistsWith the approval of 76% of its members, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes has become the second major rail union to enter into a merger agreement this year with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
BMWE President Freddie Simmons, who will now become president of the BMWE Division of the Teamsters Rail Conference, commented, "With over 42% of union members in the rail industry now united under the Teamsters banner, the rail corporations are going to be in for a tough fight at the bargaining table."
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers merged with the Teamsters earlier this year.
GE lands two in ChinaChina’s Ministry of Railways has awarded contracts to GE Transportation-Rail for freight locomotives and an advanced train control system.
GE, which currently has 400 locomotives operating in China and also runs a locomotive parts business there, will custom-build 78 4,000-hp a.c.-traction locomotives beginning in late 2005. Construction will take place at GE’s Erie, Pa., plant. The first locomotives sold to China by GE since 1985, they will be delivered beginning in 2006.
In addition, GE’s ITCS (Incremental Train Control System), an overlay PTC system currently being tested on a section of Amtrak’s Chicago-Detroit corridor in Michigan, will be installed on over 600 miles of right-of-way in China as stand-alone technology. ITCS is a communications-based, onboard-centric technology that transmits wayside signal and highway/rail grade crossing information to a locomotive onboard computer, safely separating trains and enabling the engineer to more productively adjust speed limits according to track conditions and civil speed restrictions. ITCS uses GPS for train location technology and radio for train/wayside communications. In the U.S., ITCS is currently allowing equipped Amtrak trains to operate at 90 mph.
Cattron Group brings Remtron under its wingFollowing its purchase last month of the BELTPACK® locomotive remote control product line and Canac Remote Control Technologies (formerly VECTRAN, Inc.), Cattron Group, Inc., has acquired another remote control supplier, Remtron, Inc.
Remtron produces the COMMAND PRO® line for industrial cranes and commercial mobile equipment. While the company will continue to produce, sell, service, and support its products in North America through its current domestic dealer network, Cattron Group will market, sell, and support them internationally. Headquarters will be combined with Cattron Group subsidiary Cattron-Theimeg in Sharpsville, Pa.
"This acquisition will enable us to offer the marketplace the most diverse and complete product line in the world," said Tom McFall, chairman of Cattron Group.
NYC riders get a break on fare hikesFares are going to go up for riders who use New York’s subways and buses and the Long Island and Metro North commuter railroads. But the proposed increases, which still need board approval, will be less than the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority had suggested.
This is because the MTA has been able to identify an additional $400 million that’s available from cost cutting and extra tax revenues.
At New York City Transit, the cost of the widely-used 30-day MetroCard will rise from $70 to no more than $76 instead of $84, though MTA still plans to increase the price of a seven-day card from $21 to $24. MTA plans to raise commuter railroad fares by 5% instead of 81%.
The agency has also scratched from its proposed budget the layoff of around 1,000 workers and some service cuts.
MTA emphasized that all of this may be only a temporary fix since a deficit of up to $1 billion is seen within the next couple of years.
UP strongly defends record on port trafficUnion Pacific says that "contrary to recent reports," the railroad is not responsible for ship delays at Southern California ports and has been "keeping up with demand since Memorial Day."
"We are handling record numbers of shipments, so trains sometimes don’t depart as scheduled, but we catch up quickly," said the railroad in a press statement Nov. 4. "There are several factors involved in the port problem, but Union Pacific is not responsible for causing any vessels to anchor offshore. . . . It’s the dock operator’s responsibility to unload and transfer containers to waiting trains—and the railroad’s responsibility to ensure cars, locomotives, and crews are in place. We’ve made commitments to our customers at the on-dock terminals to not get behind, and we’re living up to it. We prioritize the on-dock process to make sure customers get their cars and locomotives."
AAR clarifies indemnificationThe Association of American Railroads has responded to a recent New York Times report on Amtrak’s indemnification of host freight railroads. The Times article described a derailment on CSX Transportation in which the spouse of a passenger who had been killed sued for damages, won a judgment, and was paid, but by Amtrak, not CSXT. The article went on to imply that CSXT should have paid for damages, since the derailment was deemed CSXT’s fault due to a track problem. It also implied that the indemnification system unfairly burdens taxpayers and compromises rail safety.
"To assert that the indemnification system places an unfair burden on taxpayers and provides no incentive for the freight railroads to improve safety shows a complete lack of understanding of how our nation’s rail system operates," said AAR President and CEO Ed Hamberger. "Amtrak, not the freight railroads, brings passenger liability to tracks owned, maintained, and operated by the freight railroads. . . . Indemnification is used throughout the rail system. When freight railroads operate on Amtrak, Amtrak is indemnified. And, when one freight railroad operates on track owned by another railroad, the visiting railroad indemnifies the host railroad. The visiting railroad pays for any damages to its employees, property and customers, while the host railroad pays for damages to its employees, property, and customers."
Amtrak’s indemnification arrangement, which basically amounts to a form of no-fault insurance, has been in place since Amtrak was created in 1971 under the Rail Passenger Service Act. Hamberger pointed out that Amtrak is paying avoidable costs to operate on freight railroad tracks, not fully-allocated costs. Thus, he said, "It is unworkable from a business and practical standpoint to ask the freight railroads to bear the additional cost of liability that would not be there if not for Amtrak."
"Under law, the nation’s privately owned freight railroads must let Amtrak use their tracks, must give Amtrak priority, yet can’t charge Amtrak the actual cost of using their tracks," Hamberger said. Annually, "Amtrak pays only about 19% of the cost of using the freight network, leaving the nation’s largest freight railroads to subsidize Amtrak to the tune of $243 million a year."
Storms erode Florida East Coast earningsThe impact of three hurricanes, plus a derailment that cost $800,000, cut third-quarter profits of Florida East Coast Railway, a segment of FEC Industries. Railway operating income dropped to $7.8 million this year from $10.8 million in the third quarter of 2003. The operating ratio climbed to 83.1% from 75.9%. Though carload revenues were down 5.8%, intermodal continued to show strength despite storm-related disruptions, with revenues up 15.3% from last year.
How passenger rail fared at the pollsElection Day was doomsday for Florida's proposed high speed rail network. Governor Jeb Bush led an overwhelmingly successful effort to overturn an earlier voter mandate for a high speed train system. About two thirds of the voters rejected the proposal the second time around. In other action at the polls:
* Denver area voters approved a sales tax increase expected to raise nearly $160 million a year for 110 miles of rail and other mass transit projects.
* Seattle voters resoundingly reaffirmed their earlier approval of a monorail transit system.
* Voters in Austin, Tex., approved Capital Metro’s plan for converting 32 miles of existing rail into a commuter system.
FRA issues "an urgent message"Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Betty Monro has issued an "urgent message" to the industry in the wake of seven employee fatalities that occurred between Sept. 2 and Nov. 1, 2004, six of which involved switching operations. These included a 26-year old BNSF switchman falling from the leading end of a tank car that derailed during a switching move in Clovis, N. Mex.; a 44-year-old Ann Arbor Railroad brakeman crushed between a piece of track equipment and a railcar he was handling in Saline, Mich.; a 58-year-old Norfolk Southern conductor in Harrisburg, Pa., struck by a shove move performed by another crew as he stepped in front of the move’s leading end; a UP student trainman in Springfield, Ill., crushed by cars he was walking alongside that derailed and fell over; a 60-year-old BNSF trainman in Teague, Tex., working between two cars that moved; and a 47-year-old BNSF conductor struck by a passing train he was positioning himself to observe as it passed his standing train in Bowdoin, Mt.
Monro’s message refers to a recently released report, "Finding and Recommendations of the SOFA Working Group (SWG): August 2004 Update," in which the SWG states that 124 switching fatalities occurring between 1992 to 2003 were potentially preventable by following its "Five Operating Recommendations" as well as awareness of its "Special Switching Hazards." Among these are "Close Clearances," "Shoving as a Direction of Movement," and "Being Struck by Mainline Trains."
Two of the Operating Recommendations "appear to be more powerful than the SWG believed when it released its first report, ‘Findings and Recommendations of the SOFA Working Group,’ in October 1999," says Monro. These are "Job briefings before switching operations begin, and when the nature of work changes;" and "Mentoring of less experienced employees are important components of Crew Resource Management." The latter Recommendation "may grow further in importance as carriers replace retiring employees," she says.
The SWG has condensed the Five Operating Recommendations into what it now calls "Five SOFA Lifesavers":
1) "Secure equipment before action is taken."
2) "Protect employees against moving equipment."
3) "Discuss safety at the beginning of a job or when a project changes."
4) "Communicate before action is taken."
5) "Mentor less experienced employees to perform service safely."
Monro stresses "remaining vigilant about personal safety, the safety of others, and the safety of the equipment we use" as railroad business grows and many new employees enter the work force.
Joint AAR/ASLRRA safety conference set for this monthThe Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association will hold the Rail Industry Safety Conference, a joint safety conference, from Nov. 16 to Nov. 19 in St. Louis. The event combines what previously were separate meetings of the AAR's Annual Safety Conference and the ASLRRA's Operating and Maintenance Session.
Conference speakers will include Jo Strang, the Federal Railroad Administration's deputy associate administrator for research and development; Henry Posner III, chairman of Railroad Development Corp.; and Gerri Hall, president of Operation Lifesaver, Inc. There will be presentations on training, highway-rail grade crossing safety, security, remote control locomotives, fire safety, and roadway worker protection. There will also be an exhibit area featuring displays from companies offering a variety of products including communications & signals; computer software; engineering and design; insurance; remote control technology; safety products; and vegetation control.
The conference is being held at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis. Additional information, as well as links to register, are available on the Meetings section of this website.
Portec to acquire KelsanPortec Rail Products, Inc., and Kelsan Technologies Corp., which have had a long-standing technical alliance in the friction management field, have entered into a definitive merger agreement whereby Portec Rail will purchase 100% of the outstanding shares of Kelsan in an all-cash, C$20 million (about $16.4 million U.S.) transaction, subject to a working capital adjustment at closing. The merger agreement has been approved by both boards of directors and is subject to the approval of Kelsan shareholders. Portec expects to close the transaction in late November or early December.
Acquisition of North Vancouver, B.C.-based Kelsan "significantly expands Portec Rail’s friction management capabilities," Portec said in a statement. Portec is a distributor of Kelsan friction modification products, which control friction at the wheel/rail interface, and also designs and provides equipment for their application. Kelsan has an international presence in Europe and Asia, particularly in the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea; approximately 70% of the company’s sales were outside North America in fiscal 2004.
NPRM on locomotive crash standards issuedThe Federal Railroad Administration is accepting comments on proposed new minimum crashworthiness standards for freight locomotives that will augment Association of American Railroads Specification S-580, adopted in 1989.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which affects 49 CFR Parts 229 and 238, will apply to newly manufactured and rebuilt freight locomotives. FRA’s RSAC (Railroad Safety Advisory Committee), a rulemaking body of representatives from the FRA, railroads, rail labor, locomotive manufacturers, suppliers, and others recommended the proposed regulations.
FRA says the proposed standards are intended to maintain the structural integrity of a locomotive cab and help protect occupants in the event of a collision. Such collisions are defined as "with another locomotive, the rear of another train, a piece of on-track equipment, a shifted load on a freight car on an adjacent parallel track, or a highway vehicle at a rail-highway grade crossing." Structural enhancements include integration of such anti-climbing features as stronger, full-height corner posts and collision posts, longitudinal roof structural members, short-hood structures, and under-frame improvements. The NPRM also mandates strengthening external fuel tanks to decrease the chance of a rupture, and equipping cab interiors with emergency egress and lighting and reconfigured controls.
AAR S-580 "has served as the industry standard for crashworthiness design specifications of new road freight locomotives" and has "provided basic enhancements to the crashworthiness of road locomotives," FRA notes in the NPRM. "Many of the units built to this specification are of wide-nose cab design, often referred to as the North American cab design." It’s now time for an improvement. FRA also notes that in 1999 it issued regulations addressing the safety of passenger rail equipment, including "passenger-occupied locomotives" (cab control cars, powered multiple-unit cars). However, existing locomotive safety standards "do not address crashworthiness of conventional locomotives, which comprise the majority of locomotives in use today."
Comments about the NPRM may be submitted to the docket for the proceeding (FRA 2004-17645) via the U.S. Department of Transportation online Docket Management System until Jan. 3, 2005. The full Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has been published in the Federal Register and can be accessed by clicking HERE.