Federal Railroad Administration January 3, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

To carry out a 2008 Congressional rulemaking mandate, FRA is proposing to create regulations prescribing minimum safety and health requirements for camp cars that a railroad provides as sleeping quarters to any of its train employees, signal employees, and dispatching service employees and individuals employed to maintain its right of way. The proposed regulations would supplant existing guidelines that interpret existing statutory requirements, enacted decades earlier, that railroad-provided camp cars be clean, safe, and sanitary, and afford those employees and individuals an opportunity for rest free from the interruptions caused by noise under the control of the railroad. In further response to the rulemaking mandate, the proposed regulations would include the additional statutory requirements, enacted in 2008, that camp cars be provided with indoor toilets, potable water, and other features to protect the health of such workers. Under separate but related statutory authority, FRA is proposing to amend regulations on construction of employee sleeping quarters. In particular, FRA proposes to implement a 2008 statutory amendment that, on and after December 31, 2009, camp cars provided by a railroad as sleeping quarters exclusively for individuals employed to maintain the right of way of a railroad are within the scope of the prohibition against beginning construction or reconstruction of employee sleeping quarters near railroad switching or humping of hazardous material. FRA's existing guidelines with respect to the location, in relation to switching or humping of hazardous material, of a camp car that is occupied exclusively by individuals employed to maintain a railroad's right of way would be replaced with regulatory amendments prohibiting a railroad from positioning such a camp car in the immediate vicinity of the switching or humping of hazardous material. Finally, FRA would make conforming changes, clarify a provision on applicability, remove an existing provision on preemptive effect as unnecessary, and move, without change, an existing provision on penalties for violation of FRA regulations.