The Federal Railroad Administration is standing in the way of successful automated track-inspection technology that could replace unionized track inspectors.
The Federal Railroad Administration is standing in the way of successful automated track-inspection technology that could replace unionized track inspectors.
J oe Biden has said he intends to be “the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.” At least the honesty is refreshing.
His administration is yet again demonstrating its commitment to organized labor above all else on the question of track-safety inspections for freight railroads. At the expense of cost-effectiveness, network efficiency, and track safety itself, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is protecting union jobs and keeping our freight railroads stuck in outdated regulations.
Railroad tracks must be regularly inspected to ensure safety. Wear and tear on tracks alters the physics assumptions that allow trains to operate, which increases risk of derailment. Very precise measurements are needed to pinpoint the areas of track in need of repair and keep trains operating smoothly.
Freight railroads know this and want to avoid derailments, so they employ teams of engineers who develop new technologies to improve the quality of inspections. As technology improves, automated track inspection (ATI) looks more promising as a safer and faster alternative to manual inspections. In the past, inspections were done by railroad employees either riding in special locomotives designed for track inspection or walking along the tracks to visually inspect them. With ATI, railroads could get better data, faster, and with fewer disruptions to normal rail service.
One of the most promising technologies was developed by Norfolk Southern in 2020. Its ATI system is mounted on the bottom of ordinary freight locomotives and uses lasers to inspect the tracks and then transmits data wirelessly, in real time, to office-based analysts who can process the information. That means revenue-making trains can perform track inspections while transporting freight, which is far better than having special nonrevenue trains or, worse, people walking along the tracks, taking up space on the line and preventing normal operations.
Norfolk Southern had to ask the FRA for a regulatory waiver to use the new technology. Current regulations, which were first promulgated in 1971, require a certain number of manual inspections. Norfolk Southern asked the FRA to reduce those requirements on the line it was testing the new ATI system on, and the FRA agreed in January 2020.
In the FRA’s letter to Norfolk Southern announcing its decision, the agency demonstrated that it knows full well the benefits of ATI. It acknowledged that technological advances have allowed railroads to collect more types of data and more precise measurements than manual inspections. It acknowledged the operational benefits to railroads, with computers doing work faster than humans and inspections being possible at normal operating speeds on revenue trains. “FRA is confident that with wider application and more thorough testing . . . track safety and inspection efficiency will be significantly improved,” the letter said.
With the initial waiver set to expire, and that apparent vote of confidence for ATI systems, Norfolk Southern asked the FRA to expand the regulatory waiver to apply to Norfolk Southern’s entire network in March 2021. In its letter requesting the expansion, Norfolk Southern provided data that demonstrated that with the new ATI technology, “manual track geometry inspections may be reduced over that track segment with no degradation in safety.”
Norfolk Southern’s request was opened for public comment and went through the regulatory process. Finally, last month, the FRA denied the request to expand the technology. Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation was unimpressed:
The FRA’s justification for its refusal is weak at best. The first reason FRA gave is that “although the test program was successful under the specific conditions and metrics tested, reducing visual inspections introduces a certain amount of risk.” In other words, change involves some uncertainty. If FRA wants to use this as its standard, then it will never be able to approve any future proposal. The other reason FRA gives is that other railroads are still . . . undergoing their own pilot tests. While FRA should continue to evaluate these programs . . . there is no reason these initiatives cannot proceed in parallel.
The FRA is supposed to be the safety regulator for railroads (the Surface Transportation Board is the economic regulator). Using purely safety-based reasoning, the agency’s decision not to expand a successful implementation of new safety technology is difficult to defend.
But perhaps the FRA was not only looking at safety. Norfolk Southern’s request was not a major regulatory undertaking; it required no public hearings and saw only one public comment. That one public comment, though, was from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED), which is part of the Teamsters (and yes, they spell it“employes”).
The BMWED represents maintenance workers for Norfolk Southern and other railroads. In its comment, the union argues that while the ATI system is good at detecting some track defects, it does not detect all kinds of track defects, some of which are still best evaluated by in-person inspections. Even if that argument is true, though, it does not address Norfolk Southern’s request. The railroad does not want to eliminate manual inspections, but merely continue the reduced frequency of manual inspections in practice under the initial program the FRA already approved.
As technology develops, ATI will be able to detect more types of track defects — but regulators must allow the technology to develop. By rejecting Norfolk Southern’s request despite excellent safety results, the FRA is slowing the modernization of American freight rail and preserving union jobs. When President Trump was in office, the FRA was enthusiastic about ATI. Now that the self-described “most pro-union president” is in office, the interests of organized labor come first.
If the federal government continues to treat our transportation systems as jobs programs for union members, expect supply-chain problems to get worse in the years to come.