WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration has today published Notices of Proposed Rulemaking that would require certification of dispatchers and signal employees, under provisions of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
The rule regarding dispatchers would require railroads to develop formal training programs, methods of verifying that dispatchers have the knowledge and skills to perform the job, and a process for revoking certification for dispatchers who violate specified minimum requirements.
It proposes a three-year limit on certification to ensure periodic reevaluation of dispatchers, with revocation of certification for one of eight reasons. Revocation would be for 30 days on the first event not related to use of drugs or alcohol, with increasing duration for subsequent events.
The rule for signal employees sets similar requirements for training, certification, and revocation, and also proposes a three-year limit for certification. It would revoke certification for 11 reason, again for 30 days for the first event and increasing duration for subsequent events.
Comment periods on both proposals run through July 31. Details on the commenting process are available on the links above to the Federal Register.
Is certification site-specific? That is, will the DS be required to be familiar with the territory over which he/she is dispatching?
Mr. Mulligan: Train Dispatchers are and have always been “required to be familiar the territory over which” they are dispatching. No railroad allows a dispatcher to work a territory they had not qualified on. How could a person not fully qualified on a territory survive trying to handle that territory?
“…qualified” is subjective.
From personal experience, I was “qualified” after two trips. A trip is having worked a job twice, sometimes that would be a round trip on a territory.
From anecdotal examples, just the other day a CSX dispatcher admitted on the radio he had never talked a train by a red signal “like that”. The situation was a red absolute signal in ABS territory where CSX issues track authorities by EC-1.
I’m no expert on all railroading in North America or specifically signalling and rules but in my decades of experience observing different railroads in different areas, Automatic Block Signal territory and rules are extremely common. Regardless of the method of granting trains track authorities (track warrants, block limit stations, direct traffic control, train orders), absolute signals are extremely important and exist thru hundreds and hundreds of miles of ABS territories and when red, someone has to provide permission to pass the Stop indication. Lately, it’s been dispatchers.
I managed municipal forestry programs with values ranging from $70 to $140 million. I was required to be certified with set retraining CEUs every three years.
It’s just trees you might say. Big deal. However, managing the program was not that easy. You have every of government acronym and agency under the sun to deal with. You have politicians and citizens to deal with. You have employees and unions to deal with. You have “cylinders of excellence” to deal with. You have the NIMBYs, BANANAs and Scorched Earth groups to deal with. You have utilities to deal with. That’s just for starters.
And that’s before I even about trees and landscaping!
Those who do daily and periodic inspections on locomotives and rolling stock are currently certified for three years as delineated in their applicable regulations and reinforced in 49CFR243. More and more previously under-regulated positions are being brought in line. This is what happens when you bring attention to yourself.
Pretty sure dispatchers and signal maintainers have been keeping a low profile…at least I don’t recall many incidents relating to them specifically. This is just being done because the FRA was mandated to come up with these certification requirements way back in 2008, and there was no timeline as far as I know on when it needed to be completed. The FRA could’ve kept on dragging their feet if they had wanted to.