FRA Doubles Our Risk By Reducing Track Inspections

At the close of business on Friday (seemingly when they hoped no one would notice) the FRA quietly approved a rule change that cuts required human track inspections in half. For the crews running 20,000-ton trains across this country, that isn’t a small tweak. It’s a direct increase in our risk.  

Reducing visual inspections from twice a week to once not only doubles the time dangerous defects can go unnoticed. As SMART News explained in July, automated inspection technology catches only a fraction of what trained human inspectors look for. 

SMART-TD opposed this waiver from day one because it doubles the risk for workers, communities, and the national rail network, while padding corporate operating ratios. Over the weekend, National Safety & Legislative Director Jared Cassity laid out exactly why this ruling is dangerous, what’s motivating it, and what it means for every engineer, conductor, signal maintainer, track worker, and the public we protect.  

Before you climb up on your next train, take a moment to read Brother Cassity’s full statement. Your safety may well depend on understanding what has just changed.