3.0 Safety Trends and Possible Solutions

The overall historical picture of safety in the railroad industry is one of success. Strong public policies coupled with private and public investment has created an industry that is much safer than it was a few decades ago, and certainly safer than its truck freight competitors on all measures. But recent trends show that overall safety gains have stalled, and in some cases are trending in the wrong direction. This section reviews aggregate and granular railroad safety data as it relates to different types of incidents, different groups of railroads, and different parts of the country.

The Federal Railroad Administration has been collecting robust data on safety for decades, measuring the various incidents, injuries and deaths. Most incidents do not involve fatalities or injuries, but federal regulations require reporting for any illness, injury, or incident that has total monetary damage over a certain threshold, which is currently set at $11,200.110

This data analysis looks at four main categories of safety incidents: 1. Highway-rail grade crossing incidents. These are collisions that happen at public or private grade crossings with active or passive warning devices. 2. Train accidents (not at grade crossings). While train accidents can mean a major collision between trains, the vast majority of these incidents are derailments that happen in yards or elsewhere on rail property. 3. Workforce and other incidents. These primarily involve employee illnesses or injuries (slips, trips, or falls) on the job. 4. Trespasser incidents not at grade crossings. Incidents can range from graffiti to suicides that take place at locations other than grade crossings.

This analysis divides the data into several different types of railroad groups to better understand trends related to different sectors of the railroad industry:111 • Class I freight railroads. This includes the seven largest railroads: Union Pacific,

BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National and Kansas City

Southern. • Group 2 Railroads. FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis grouping of railroads that are not Class Is but have more than 400,000 employee hours in the latest calendar year • Group 3 Railroads. FRA’s Office of Safety Analysis grouping of railroads that have fewer than 400,000 employee hours in the latest calendar year • Commuter railroads. This includes all commuter passenger railroads that are governed by FRA regulations. Some commuter railroads are also counted in Group 2 and Group 3, as are intercity passenger rail carriers other than Amtrak and tourist railroads. • Amtrak.