WASHINGTON — Railroading is an outdoor sport, and the Federal Railroad Administration is encouraging railroads to step up their play in bad weather.
In a safety advisory issued Monday, Nov. 20, the FRA urged railroads to take steps to ensure that they take proper precautions while operating through extreme weather events, including tornadoes, high winds, floods, and heat.
From January 2021 through the end of July this year railroads have reported 123 weather-related accidents to the FRA, with more of the incidents being mainline derailments. Tornadoes caused four mainline wrecks; flooding 10; high winds 12; and sun kinks 40, FRA said.
The safety advisory, which is non-binding, makes six recommendations. Railroads should:
- Evaluate their policies and procedures related to severe weather and make sure that they are adequate to ensure that weather-related responses can be initiated quickly.
- Evaluate their weather forecasting policies and procedures.
- Evaluate their operating infrastructure to identify critical areas susceptible to severe weather.
- Evaluate weather-related plans to ensure they detail actions required to address risks posted by severe weather.
- Establish standard operating thresholds to ensure their weather-related plans adequately prepare for severe weather.
- Work together to develop industry-wide best practices for using forecasts, predictive weather models, and weather-related action plans.
The loss of local dispatching and having manpower available to react to bad weather, either heavy rain and wind or snow and ice in cold weather areas has hurt railroads safety and dependable operations. You can’t continue to cut costs and expect safe, good service. Some money needs to be dedicated to preventative maintenance and extra people to inspect and repair needed areas.
Today railroads most likely would not build the snow sheds that were built years ago to ensure the trains could get through areas with major snowfall and rockslides in winter. I hope the FRA continues to monitor the situation and fines railroads that do not take proper precautions.
In the now long-vanished past, most in railroad management understood the effects of weather because they had considerable experience actually working in it. Today it seems to be more important to have a degree, in the air-conditioned halls of some institute of theoretical learning.
To late for the Chicago area where the recent collision occurred with a piece of snow equipment and on a good weather day.
I know I always loved it when CSX Jacksonville managers starred in video’s explaining how we should Pre-PARE for WINTER up here in Michigan! Yeah right. These same guys NEED the FRA to point out the obvious to them.
Um, I have a long memory of stuff I read in TRAINS MAGAZINE. Years ago, CSX’s Jacksonville dispatching center was shut down for a hurricane, TRAINS wrote. The TRAINS MAG article said that because of the hurricane in Florida, CSX couldn’t run trains in Michigan.
My first reaction was to ridicule the FRA for stating the obvious, and that any railroad with decent management would be way out front on this already. But then I thought about all of the many, many “common sense” practices that the railroads abandoned in 2017 with the rush to implement PSR. Though mostly consigned to the ash heap of history now, we’re still feeling the ill effects of the disaster PSR was and is. So maybe some railroad management actually needs the FRA to blow their noses, wipe their bottoms, and make sure they wear earmuffs, mittens, and several layers of clothing when they play outside.
I was thinking the same thing Daniel. Remember back in the 70’s and 80’s that I can recall UP had inspectors walk every mile of the railway, once a week. Use to see this driving across Nebraska especially.
I would have to assume that this practice has long been abandoned.
100+ years railroads have been operating in all kinds of weather and have probably thought about these things on their own.
You mean FRA wants them to SPEND MONEY just to prevent a snow emergency BEFORE one happens?
Its hard to believe isn’t it… Then they ought to add that if a derailment or accident was determined (by the NSTB) to be caused by lack of preparation, maintenance or improper or shoddy maintenance, then a fine will be forthcoming, amounting to more than the usual token $10-15,000 or like fine. Fines needs to be commensurate with the violation, otherwise they are just a bug squished on the windshield of a locomotive to management. Mention East Palestine, Ohio to NS and they can tell you what a “real” fine is all about…
Timely and wise recommendations from the vigilant FRA.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Dr. Güntürk,
You are absolutely correct. This being the first season that railroads have likely ever operated in potentially adverse conditions, I’m sure that the advisory was appreciated and well-received.
Absolutely. As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, Michigan or Wisconsin, I’ve seen all kinds of weather (most of it wretched). However I don’t believe that any of the local railroads have had the same weather awareness that I’ve had. Totally important for FRA to issue this reminder that America has the worst weather conditions and weather variety on the face of the earth. Obviously most railroads haven’t noticed.
American railroading began long before the Civil War in West Quincy and East Milton, Massachusetts. That’s too recently for any railroader to know that the Boston area is a heavy snow belt, sometimes stretching into March.