BNSF: Second Class I to Participate in FRA C3RS

“BNSF is committed to improving safety on our railroad and is proud to have reached an agreement to voluntarily participate with ATDA in C3RS,” BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer said April 25. (BNSF Photograph)

BNSF and the American Train Dispatchers Association (ATDA) will partner with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to join a one-year pilot program of the FRA-sponsored Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS). Their decision to participate, announced April 25, means that approximately 650 BNSF workers represented by ATDA will be able to “report unsafe events confidentially while being protected from BNSF disciplinary action and FRA enforcement,” according to the Class I railroad.

Through the program, train dispatchers can report and provide details on close call events—including “unsafe practices, behaviors, or situations that cause railroad safety concerns”—to NASA, an independent third-party that maintains C3RS data, according to BNSF. NASA will receive those reports via a secure website or a written form and “de-identify” and share them with a Peer Review Team, comprising ATDA, BNSF and FRA representatives; the team will then review the reports and “develop recommended corrective actions that can help improve railroad safety,” BNSF said.

According to FRA, the program “informs corrective actions that mitigate hazards, and shares data and analyses conducted by NASA under C3RS with the entire railroad industry, which ultimately improves rail safety.” It noted that lessons-learned and best practices are also shared during briefings and at FRA-hosted workshops, “leveraging the experiences employees report to enhance the safety of the rail industry as a whole.”

All Class I railroads, through the Association of American Railroads (AAR), committed to joining C3RS in March 2023 and have been working with FRA to make program adjustments they feel are necessary. AAR President and CEO Ian Jefferies explained the railroads’ commitment in a March 2, 2023, letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who in Feb. 27, 2023, letters to the individual railroads requested that they join C3RS, following the Norfolk Southern (NS) train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO also urged the Class I railroads to participate.

NS earlier this year became the first Class I to join the program. According to FRA, 28 passenger and freight railroads are also participating.

“BNSF is committed to improving safety on our railroad and is proud to have reached an agreement to voluntarily participate with ATDA in C3RS,” BNSF President and CEO Katie Farmer said. “We hope this program will further empower our employees to provide confidential feedback on critical safety issues in an actionable, timely manner. We look forward to working with the FRA and ATDA on this positive step forward.”

“The adoption of the C3RS at BNSF marks a pivotal moment for rail safety,” ATDA President Ed Dowell said. “As a program focused on proactive safety measures, it will serve as the new standard for reporting, understanding, and preventing rail incidents. Furthermore, this would not have been possible without the BNSF’s willingness to be the first Class I railroad to reach a C3RS agreement with ATDA. The ATDA is proud to be the first organization to reach C3RS agreement with BNSF.”

“The Federal Railroad Administration is pleased that ATDA and BNSF came together to join C3RS, a vital safety program, and we are confident that providing opportunities for dispatchers to share their experiences will have real results on rail safety,” FRA Administrator Amit Bose said. “Rail workers have experience and expertise that are vitally important, and hearing from them can lead to proactive safety measures. The C3RS program is a proven, long-standing avenue to achieve just this, and that’s why USDOT and FRA have been working so hard to secure Class I freight railroad participation in the C3RS program.”

For more information on C3RS, including a full list of participating railroads, visit FRA’s webpage on the program.

In a related development, NASA on Jan. 26 reported awarding a contract to Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. of McLean, Va., to support C3RS and the agency’s Aviation Safety Reporting System.

Further Reading:

• C3RS: Railroad Safety Revisited—or Not
• When Will Class I’s Fulfill Their C3RS Commitment?
• Class I Participation in FRA C3RS Still Pending
• BRC Eyes C3RS Participation
• C3RS Not as Clear-Cut as It Seems
• AAR: Class I’s On Board With C3RS; FRA Data Points to ‘Strong Safety Record’
• C3RS Issues ‘Blue-Signal Protection’ Memo