Railroad Safety

FRA's Office of Railroad Safety promotes and regulates safety throughout the Nation's railroad industry.  The office executes its regulatory and inspection responsibilities through a diverse staff of railroad safety experts.  The staff includes 400 Federal safety inspectors who operate out of eight regional offices.   A regional administrator and two deputy regional administrators manage each region, with a supervisory specialist for five of the safety disciplines and several chief inspectors.  The five disciplines include:

Hazardous Materials
Motive Power and Equipment
Operating Practices (includes drug and alcohol)
Signal and Train Control
Track Structures

Additionally, FRA's field complement includes program managers for Highway-Rail Grade Crossing and Trespass Prevention, bridge structure specialists, and industrial hygienists.   The Office of Railroad Safety also trains and certifies State safety inspectors, currently about 170 in 30 States, to enforce Federal rail-safety regulations.

The office also manages a substantial regulatory agenda.  It oversees and participates on the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, which provides consensus recommendations from the industry on a range of regulatory issues.  Our Planning and Evaluation Division supports this effort through cost-effective solutions to railroad safety problems.

To help us properly handle our various functions and duties, we collect and analyze rail-related accident/incident data from the railroads and convert this information into meaningful statistical tables, charts, and reports.  Along with this effort, we continuously monitor the occurrence of train accidents and incidents in real time and actively investigate serious events to determine their cause and compliance with existing safety laws and regulations.  Once headquarters-assigned accident investigations are complete, reports are available for public inspection. 

For a more thorough look at the Office of Railroad Safety and its many responsibilities, please click on one of the categories to the left.

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