WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration today (Dec. 5) approved a five-year waiver allowing expanded use of automatic track inspection, ending a long period when the FRA had not acted on requests regarding the technology.
In a letter to the Association of American Railroads, Karl Alexy, the FRA’s chief safety officer, said the FRA’s Railroad Safety Board — which acts on waiver petitions — had determined that “expanding the scope to include more railroads will allow the demonstration of the effectiveness of expanded TGMS [track geometry measurement system] testing in conjunction with a uniform level of reduced visual inspection.”
It is therefore in the public interest and consistent with railroad safety, Alexy wrote.
Waivers will be granted subject to a dozen conditions, according to the letter. Among them are 30 days’ advance notice; identification of subdivisions to be included, which cannot be changed for one year; automated inspection of all main tracks and sidings in those subdivisions at least once a month; the ability to reduce visual inspections from twice to once weekly; monthly and annual reports on testing results; and a requirement to report within 24 hours any derailment in track covered by the waiver.
“This waiver will provide the industry with an opportunity to demonstrate the potential of automated track inspection technology to enhance rail safety and improve efficiency,” FRA Administrator David Fink said in a press release. “ATI technology is designed to enhance already effective visual inspections by catching things that human eyes miss.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the waiver “will allow U.S. railroads to complement visual track inspections with innovative technology that will identify issues on our rail [network] before they become a serious safety threat for rail passengers and crew.”
FRA action on the track inspection and other waivers stalled under Administrator Amit Bose. The FRA turned down requests by BNSF Railway, Union Pacific, and Norfolk Southern to expand existing inspection programs while failing to act on other waiver requests [see “FRA slows Class I railroad implementation …,” Trains.com, Nov. 4, 2024]. It eventually proposed a rule that would require railroads to ensure automated inspections would not eliminate jobs [see “FRA aims to tighten rules …,” Trains.com, Oct. 28, 2024].
The AAR had requested a waiver from some track inspection regulations in an April 24, 2025, petition, published in the Federal Register, asking that railroads be allowed to use a combination of automated and visual inspections.
“FRA has acted on the industry’s waiver request, representing a step forward,” the AAR said in a statement this evening. “Our team is reviewing the technical details to fully understand the scope and conditions of the decision. Automated Track Inspection is a proven safety technology, and expanding its use will strengthen safety and reliability across the nation’s rail network.”
Several union organizations filed comments with the FRA opposing the AAR request. The Transportation Trades Division of the AFL-CIO and one of its member unions, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, called for the FRA to require increased automated inspections while maintaining current levels of visual inspection, saying that the visual inspections address 17 types of track defects that the automated systems cannot. The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen wrote that “nothing replaces the safety assurance provided by boots-on-the-ground visual inspections” and called the potential for fewer visual inspections “a drastic and worrying shift, one that we believe poses a real threat to railroad safety.” And the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD) said it was strongly opposed, seeing the proposal as “a dangerous retreat from proven safety practices.”
Trains has asked labor representatives to comment.
The decision comes just four days after a Washington Post editorial took the Trump administration to task over its failure to act on the AAR request. That editorial said it was expected the Biden administration “would haplessly defend an outdated regulation at the best of union bosses,” but wondered, “Why would the Trump administration want to follow in its footsteps?”
