The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) was created by the Department ofTransportation Act of 1966. It is one of ten agencies within the U.S. Department ofTransportation concerned with intermodal transportation. FRA promotes safe,environmentally sound, successful railroad transportation to meet the needs of all customers today and tomorrow.
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 Federal Railroad Administration is responsible for working with stakeholders to develop cohesive goals and policies for maintaining and improving the U.S. freight and passenger rail networks. This section covers various efforts across America and the world in helping to deliver safe, reliable, and efficient rail transportation.
FRA Research & Development (R&D) projects contribute to the FRA's safety regulatory processes, to railroad suppliers, to railroads involved in the transportation of freight, intercity passengers, commuters, and to railroad employees and their labor organizations.
In this section, we provide descriptions and comprehensive, official sources for FRA's regulations (also called rules), selected legislation, as well as policy and guidance documents. Additionally, you will find current topics of high interest or significant impact to Congress, railroads, employees, labor, public interest groups and other stakeholders.
FRA supports passenger and freight railroading through a variety of competitive grant, dedicated grant, and loan programs to develop safety improvements, relieve congestion, and encourage the expansion and upgrade of passenger and freight rail infrastructure and services. FRA also provides training and technical assistance to grantees and stakeholders.
The Federal Railroad Administration Office of Communications is the primary link between the agency and reporters, the public and others who have an interest in our nation's rail network.
The FRA eLibrary contains all the documents that are found throughout the FRA Public Website. Multiple pages on the website may link to the same eLibrary item based on its set of metadata.
FRA is a data-driven agency. Every regulation, Safety Advisory, and Emergency Order we issue is based on facts and sound research using advanced statistical methods and modeling. We closely monitor data and trends to eliminate risk.
Two straight years of record-breaking safety performance, along with significant reductions in all types of accidents since 2008, proves that FRA’s approach to oversight and enforcement is effective.
But we owe it to the public and rail workers to do better, and are focused on leading the next generation of safety improvements.
Continuous safety improvement requires a comprehensive strategy designed to eliminate risk on railroads.
We accomplish this by merging proven safety approaches - like our rail safety inspections and oversight programs - with performance-based safety measures that improve safety culture, harness technology and research, then apply the best of what we've learned to establish benchmarks, develop and ensure adherence to best practices, and implement new safety management programs.