Railway Worker Safety To Be Improved by New Rule After Reports of Accidents, Deaths

Federal regulators approved new safety standards to reduce the risks transit workers face from trains, falls, electrocution and other hazards.

To help reduce the risk of severe and life-threatening injuries among individuals working around various railways in the U.S., including subway, light rail and trolley systems, federal regulators have approved new safety rules that all transit agencies must now comply with.

Transit employees who work on or around railway lines face a unique set of risks, including being hit by trains, falling and being electrocuted, which has led to at least 144 injuries and 29 deaths between 2008 and 2024.

For these reasons, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended in 2014 that the federal government take some form of regulatory action to address railway worker safety. However, no federal agency has acted on this recommendation until now.

In a press release issued on October 29, the U.S. Federal Transit Agency (FTA) announced that it has issued new safety standards that will help protect individuals working on or around transit railways, including mandating comprehensive training for workers and ensuring that unsafe conditions are properly reported.

The final version of the FTA rule was published in the Federal Register on October 31, requiring all U.S. rail transit agencies to adopt approved protection programs for workers who access tracks, including:

• Job safety briefings
• Training programs
• Protections for solo workers

State rail transit agencies are expected to use the FTA’s federal standards as a baseline, applying proper safety management procedures to review and approve state worker protection programs, monitor their implementation and conduct annual audits for compliance.

“Improving rail worker safety means making sure that roadway workers have the training, equipment, rest, and layers of protection they need while working on or around tracks,” NTSB board member Tom Chapman said in a press release. “FTA’s new rule represents important progress.”

Railway Workers Face Significant Dangers

In addition to the risks of electrocution and being hit by trains, railway workers also face other dangers unique to their employment, due to their proximity to other potential disasters.

In 2023, a Norfolk Southern toxic train derailment in Ohio led to a number of railroad workers getting sick due to a lack of proper protective equipment, according to union leaders.

Two letters, one sent to Ohio Governor Michael DeWine (PDF) and the other to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (PDF), outlined concerns that Norfolk Southern had a business model that skimped on safety to increase profits, which the workers believed contributed to the train derailment.

Although there is no guarantee that the FTA’s new rule will protect future workers in a similar situation, officials believe it is a step in the right direction.

“For the first time, FTA is issuing a national standard to make work safer for the men and women who maintain our country’s transit systems,” FTA Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg said in her agency’s press release announcing the rule. “We owe them a safe workplace as they provide an essential service to the traveling public.”