Federal Railroad Administration July 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

FRA proposes to amend its regulations on railroad workplace safety to reduce further the risk of serious injury or death to roadway workers. In particular, FRA proposes to require that railroads adopt specified on-track safety procedures to protect certain roadway work groups from the movement of trains or other on-track equipment on ``adjacent track.'' FRA proposes to define ``adjacent track'' as ``any controlled track whose track center is 19 feet or less from the track center of the occupied track.'' These on-track safety procedures would be required for each adjacent track when a roadway work group with at least one of the roadway workers on the ground, is engaged in a common task with an on-track roadway maintenance machine or coupled equipment on an occupied track. FRA also proposes to require that railroads, contractors to railroads, and roadway workers comply with these procedures.

Section 9002 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) (Pub. L. 109-59, August 10, 2005) amends chapter 201 of Title 49 of the United States Code by adding section 20154. Section 20154 authorizesbut does not appropriate$350,000,000 per year for each of the fiscal years (FY) 2006 through 2009 for the purpose of funding a grant program to provide financial assistance for local rail line relocation and improvement projects. Section 20154 directs the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) to issue regulations implementing this grant program, and the Secretary has delegated this responsibility to FRA. This final rule establishes a regulation intended to carry out that statutory mandate. As of the publication of this final rule, Congress did not appropriate any funding for the program for FY 2006 or FY 2007 but did appropriate $20,040,200 for fiscal year 2008.