WASHINGTON – The Federal Railroad Administration today published a final rule updating its locomotive safety standards. The agency says the rule “incorporates existing industry and engineering best practices related to locomotives and to the electronics in them.”
Among the changes are for new and remanufactured locomotives to be equipped with a lock to prevent unauthorized intrusions. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen requested the change after a CSX conductor was shot in the cab of his train’s lead locomotive during a 2010 robbery.
The rule also changes the existing requirement for periodic inspections of locomotives from 92 days to a 184 days for any locomotive equipped with microprocessor-based control systems with self-diagnostic capabilities. The agency said the rule would produce $378 million in savings for railroads over the next 20 years.
The final rule is effective June 8, 2012.
