Some in the federal work force may say, “Take this job and shove it,” but not so at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), where job satisfaction for 2018 was the highest among the Department of Transportation’s nine modal administrations.
Nothing says fundamental transformation quite like Norfolk Southern’s new Network Operations Center, a murmuring, windowless bunker where the Class I has aggregated its dispatching in downtown Atlanta.
MTA New York City Transit announced Dec. 10 that as part of its Save Safe Seconds campaign to safely improve subway performance, a multidisciplinary team of engineers and safety officials, working closely with the agency’s unionized signal maintainers, have begun raising “antiquated” speed limits on certain track segments and repairing faulty speed restriction signals throughout the subway system.
Railway Age December 2018, Cover Story: BNSF Railway Co. Executive Chairman Matthew K. Rose will retire from the railroad in April of 2019, after 26 years of service. At the end of his tenure, Rose will have been Executive Chairman for six years, and CEO for the prior 13 years. He also served in senior marketing and operations positions at BNSF and predecessor Burlington Northern before assuming the CEO role in December 2000.
New Jersey Transit announced Dec. 5 that Positive Train Control is “95% complete” toward meeting compliance with the Dec. 3, 2018 interim deadline. Concurrently, the agency launched “a new comprehensive communications initiative aimed at improving the customer experience” and announced a procurement for new multi-level railcars.
The Federal Railroad Administration has certified a system-wide signals upgrade by the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) transit system as meeting all the requirements for Positive Train Control (PTC). The move comes several weeks before the Dec. 31 federal deadline.
What happens when you retire? I’m sure there are few things on everyone’s minds: that extra free time to look forward to, those hobbies you will now have time for, and all the places to visit. For a company, however, losing long-standing employees to retirement can be a difficult moment. Not only do they lose a valued colleague; a firm loses valuable institutional knowledge, experience and wisdom. The gap that is left behind is tangible and can really hurt business stability and growth.
The trade association of U.S. freight railroads this week urged the federal government to take a balanced approach to automation as a way to a safer, more efficient and more productive industry in the coming years.
Work exhaustion and lack of effectiveness to properly carry out job functions to the highest standards put people at risk on a railroad. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) makes it a strong priority to know when employees are on the clock working on the movement or function of a train and when they are not. These regulations and time tracking fall into the Hours of Service (HOS) law. They must be met within FRA standards; railroads face fines and penalties if they aren’t met.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on Nov. 21 issued a final rule establishing what it’s calling” modern, performance-based safety standards for railroad passenger equipment.” The rule, characterized as a “deregulatory action” under Executive Order (EO) 13771, “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” is expected to save more than $475 million in net regulatory costs.
