Avi Koenig-Winter, a student at the Columbia Law School, has posted All Aboard! Regulating Locomotive Engineers:
Academic treatment of locomotive engineer training and certification under 49 C.F.R. Part 240 has remained surprisingly sparse, focusing predominantly on decertification procedures rather than core qualification standards. This article fills this scholarly gap by introducing a “Brandeisian” approach to Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulation, reimagining the agency not merely as an enforcer of minimum standards but as an active repository and disseminator of industry best practices.--Dan Ernst
Drawing on a comprehensive historical analysis of federal transportation-safety laws—from the 1838 Steamboat Act to the watershed Railway Safety Improvement Act of 1988—alongside the author’s firsthand railroad operations experience, the article critiques the current Part 240 framework. It demonstrates how industry pushback led the FRA to abandon specific training criteria in favor of a vague, delegated model. This approach sharply contrasts with the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) detailed pilot regulations, functions more as a substance-abuse control than a robust training standard, and disproportionately burdens smaller Class III railroads with high compliance costs.
To resolve these regulatory and operational deficiencies, the article proposes several concrete reforms: implementing a tiered certification framework modeled on FAA flight-school standards; utilizing Part 240 appendices to publish model training programs that reduce compliance burdens while preserving railroad-specific flexibility; and streamlining the arduous decertification process by eliminating the intermediate Operating Crew Review Board to resolve procedural delays and due process concerns. As railroad safety becomes increasingly federalized, the article concludes that a Brandeisian model offers the most effective path forward to enhance safety, improve regulatory certainty, and foster industry-wide excellence.
