American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association

Under FRA’s proposed rule for dispatcher certification, railroads would be required to have “formal processes for training prospective dispatchers, as well as verifying that each dispatcher has the requisite knowledge, skills, safety record, and abilities to safely perform all of the safety-related dispatcher duties mandated by federal laws and regulations, prior to certification.” (Union Pacific Photograph)

FRA: Comment Period Extended Again for Proposed Dispatcher, Signal Employee Certification Regs

The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) on June 21 reported filing petitions with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requesting a 60-day extension of the comment period for two proposals that would require freight railroads, Amtrak and commuter railroads to develop certification programs for network dispatchers and signal employees. FRA on July 5 and again on Aug. 22 extended the comment period by 30 days and 15 days, respectively.

AAR, ASLRRA, TTD to Congress: Rethink Cap on RRB Spending

The Railroad Retirement Board’s (RRB) ability to process retirements and sickness benefits for railroad employees and retirees “living in every state and every congressional district” would be “severely” impacted by the limitation on RRB’s administrative funding included in the fiscal year (FY) 2024 House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill, the Association of American Railroads (AAR), American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), and Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) told Congress in a July 31 letter expressing their opposition.

AAR, ASLRRA, IBT, TTD Urge Swift Passage of REEF Act

Two rail industry associations and two unions teamed recently to encourage Congressional support of the Railroad Employee Equity and Fairness Act (REEF Act; H.R.2785/S.1274), which they said would “eliminate cuts to railroad unemployment and sickness benefits.”

Commentary

Good Hits or Bad Hits? The Determination is Ours

ASLRRA PERSPECTIOVE, RAILWAY AGE JUNE 2023 ISSUE: “And the hits just keep on coming” was a phrase popularized by 1960s radio announcers to boast that their radio station was going to play one beloved record after another. The 1992 movie “A Few Good Men” popularized a wholly different meaning of the same phrase when Tom Cruise (Lt. Daniel Kaffee) who, at the end of a litany of contentious disagreements with his unwanted co-counsel Demi Moore (Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Galloway), utters those words in a sarcastic response to her assertion that, like it or not, she is coming to Cuba with him for his meeting with Jack Nicholson (Colonel Nathan Jessup).

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