49 CFR 228 - HOURS OF SERVICE OF RAILROAD EMPLOYEES

FRA is amending its hours of service recordkeeping regulations, to add substantive hours of service regulations, including maximum on-duty periods, minimum off-duty periods, and other limitations, for train employees ( e.g., locomotive engineers and conductors) providing commuter and intercity rail passenger transportation. The new substantive regulations require that railroads employing such train employees analyze and mitigate the risks for fatigue in the schedules worked by these train employees, and that the railroads submit to FRA for its approval the relevant schedules and fatigue mitigation plans. This final rule also makes corresponding changes to FRA's hours of service recordkeeping regulation, to require railroads to keep hours of service records and report excess service to FRA in a manner consistent with the new substantive requirements. This regulation is authorized by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

FRA is proposing to amend its hours of service recordkeeping regulations, to establish hours of service regulations, including maximum on-duty periods, minimum off-duty periods, and other limitations, for train employees ( e.g., locomotive engineers and conductors) providing commuter and intercity rail passenger transportation. The proposed regulations would require that railroads employing such train employees analyze and mitigate the risks for fatigue in the schedules worked by these train employees, and that the railroads submit to FRA for its approval the relevant schedules and fatigue mitigation plans. This proposed rule would also make corresponding changes to FRA's hours of service recordkeeping regulation, to require railroads to keep hours of service records and report excess service to FRA in a manner consistent with the new requirements. This proposed regulation is authorized by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

To carry out a 2008 Congressional rulemaking mandate, FRA is proposing to create regulations prescribing minimum safety and health requirements for camp cars that a railroad provides as sleeping quarters to any of its train employees, signal employees, and dispatching service employees and individuals employed to maintain its right of way. The proposed regulations would supplant existing guidelines that interpret existing statutory requirements, enacted decades earlier, that railroad-provided camp cars be clean, safe, and sanitary, and afford those employees and individuals an opportunity for rest free from the interruptions caused by noise under the control of the railroad. In further response to the rulemaking mandate, the proposed regulations would include the additional statutory requirements, enacted in 2008, that camp cars be provided with indoor toilets, potable water, and other features to protect the health of such workers. Under separate but related statutory authority, FRA is proposing to amend regulations on construction of employee sleeping quarters. In particular, FRA proposes to implement a 2008 statutory amendment that, on and after December 31, 2009, camp cars provided by a railroad as sleeping quarters exclusively for individuals employed to maintain the right of way of a railroad are within the scope of the prohibition against beginning construction or reconstruction of employee sleeping quarters near railroad switching or humping of hazardous material. FRA's existing guidelines with respect to the location, in relation to switching or humping of hazardous material, of a camp car that is occupied exclusively by individuals employed to maintain a railroad's right of way would be replaced with regulatory amendments prohibiting a railroad from positioning such a camp car in the immediate vicinity of the switching or humping of hazardous material. Finally, FRA would make conforming changes, clarify a provision on applicability, remove an existing provision on preemptive effect as unnecessary, and move, without change, an existing provision on penalties for violation of FRA regulations.