FRA

  • PTC

FRA offers PTC funding webinar

The Federal Railroad Administration is hosting a webinar on Monday, June 4, to aid eligible entities seeking funding for Positive Train Control (PTC) system deployment under a recently issued $250 million Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

Saving lives where road meets rail

Forty-five years of Gem State safety effort is reaffirmed by crew members and state troopers climbing aboard a pair of Union Pacific locomotives at Coeur d’Alene Junction, Idaho, on the morning of Sept. 13, 2017.

AAR to DOT: Automation “at an inflection point”

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) on May 7 filed comments with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) that call for the U.S. Department of Transportation “to take the same supportive regulatory approach with railroads that it has with automation of trucks and cars.”

Commentary

The only way to be sure

The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a Draft Safety Advisory, 2018-01, Related to Temporary Signal Suspensions. For the first time I can recall, FRA is soliciting public comment “on all aspects of the Draft Safety Advisory.”

  • News

FRA increasing field strength

The Federal Railroad Administration, with a new leader in place and a confirmed budget, is seeking to fill nearly 100 key vacancies across the U.S. “to further strengthen and improve the organization’s ability to carry out its safety mission.”

Commentary

Safety won’t improve with incomplete, inaccurate data

What a world. FRA is on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. NTSB is on Twitter and YouTube, and might be on Facebook, but I don’t know since the NTSB website doesn’t say one way or another, and I’m not on Facebook or Twitter, and not, to my knowledge on YouTube, or if I am, it’s not my doing, I promise.

  • PTC

Batory to railroads: We’re here for you

Characterizing progress on Positive Train Control as “uneven,” Federal Railroad Administrator Ron Batory pledged that the agency he now officially leads “is taking a proactive approach to ensure railroads acquire, install, test and fully implement certified PTC systems in time to meet the congressional interim deadline of Dec. 31, 2018.”

It’s official: Batory sworn in as FRA Administrator

WASHINGTON – Ronald L. Batory officially became the 14th United States Federal Railroad Administrator on February 28, 2018. In the presence of his family, and numerous colleagues he has known throughout his 47-year career as a railroader, Batory was sworn in by U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.