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Office of Railroad Safety
FRA's Office of Railroad Safety promotes and regulates safety throughout the Nation's railroad industry.
The Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety (also know as the Chief Safety Officer) provides executive direction to the Office of Railroad Safety through two Deputy Associate Administrators and eight Regional Administrators. They execute regulatory and inspection responsibilities through a highly-qualified staff, including 400 Federal safety inspectors, who are organized into several programs and safety disciplines.
- Hazardous Materials
- Railroad Crossing Safety and Trespass Prevention
- Industrial Hygiene
- Motive Power & Equipment
- Operating Practices
- Passenger Rail
- Rail & Infrastructure Integrity
- Bridge and Structures Safety
- Railroad Safety Information Management
- Railroad Safety Program Management
- Railroad Safety Technical Training Standards
- Railroad System Oversight
- Risk Reduction
- Safety Regulatory Analysis
- Signal and Train Control
- Positive Train Control
- State Rail Safety Participation Team
- Track
Responsibilities include:
- Train and certify State safety inspectors (currently about 170 in 30 States) to enforce Federal rail-safety regulations;
- Manage a substantial regulatory agenda, overseeing and participating in the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, which provides consensus recommendations from the industry on a range of regulatory issues;
- Continuously monitoring the occurrence of train accidents and incidents;
- Investigate serious events to determine their cause and railroad compliance with existing safety laws and regulations;
- Collect and analyze rail-related accident/incident data and convert this information into meaningful statistical tables, charts, and reports.