Ruling could hinder cutting train crew sizes

OMAHA, Neb. — An appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s decision to drop a proposal to require freight trains to have at least two crew members, a plan that was drafted after several fiery crude oil train derailments.

The ruling Tuesday from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will likely make it harder for the railroad industry to reduce the number of crew members in most trains from two to just one. It opens the door for states to require two-man crews on freight trains that haul crude oil, ethanol and other hazardous commodities.

The court ruled that the Federal Railroad Administration acted arbitrarily when it dropped the safety measure President Barack Obama’s administration drafted in response to explosions of crude oil trains in the U.S. and Canada. The FRA said in 2019 that safety data didn’t support requiring two-man crews on all freight trains.

The 2016 proposal followed oil train derailments including a runaway oil train in 2013 that derailed, exploded and killed 47 people while leveling much of the town of Lac Megantic in Canada. Other derailments of trains carrying oil and ethanol have occurred in Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Virginia and other states.

Rail labor groups, which have maintained that single-person crews would make trains more accident-prone, praised the ruling. Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department coalition, said the decision “overturned one of the most indefensible decisions by the previous FRA.”

The railroad industry has argued that the installation of an automatic braking system on nearly 58,000 miles of track nationwide, which was completed last year, helps make the second person in a locomotive’s cab unnecessary.

The $15 billion braking system is aimed at reducing human error by automatically stopping trains in certain situations like when it’s in danger of colliding, derailing because of excessive speed, entering track under maintenance or traveling the wrong direction because of switching mistakes.