Miscellaneous Revisions to the Qualification and Certification of Conductors

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 242</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FRA-2025-0133]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2130-AD61</RIN> <SUBJECT>Miscellaneous Revisions to the Qualification and Certification of Conductors</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule would update FRA's conductor certification requirements by reducing the information that is required on a conductor's certificate and allowing certificates to be electronic. FRA is also proposing changes to the certification revocation process and the Administrative Hearing Officer (AHO) process. Lastly, FRA is proposing other administrative updates including revising definitions and correcting errors in the regulatory text. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule must be received by September 2, 2025. FRA may consider comments received after that date, but only to the extent practicable. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Comments related to Docket No. FRA-2025-0133 may be submitted by going to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and following the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name, docket number (FRA-2025-0133), and Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for this rulemaking (2130-AD61). All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov;</E> this includes any personal information. Please see the Privacy Act heading in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document for Privacy Act information related to any submitted comments or materials. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Christian Holt, Staff Director-Operating Practices Division, Federal Railroad Administration, telephone: 202-366-0978, email: <E T="03">christian.holt@dot.gov;</E> or Michael C. Spinnicchia, Attorney Adviser, Federal Railroad Administration, telephone: 202-713-7671, email: <E T="03">michael.spinnicchia@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Consistent with the deregulatory agenda of President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy, which seeks to unleash America's economic prosperity without compromising transportation safety, FRA is reviewing its regulatory requirements in parts 200 through 299 of Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The requirements for FRA-regulated entities to certify conductors are established in 49 CFR part 242, “Qualification and Certification of Conductors.” Some of the requirements contained in part 242 could be updated to reduce burdens, make technical or conforming changes, ensure due process or constitutionality, or otherwise adjust to advancing technology without any adverse effect on railroad safety. Please review the SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS below for the relevant information related to each proposed change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">§ 242.7 Definitions</HD> To be consistent with 49 CFR 209.5, FRA is proposing to amend this section by adjusting the definitions for “File, filed and filing” and “Serve or service.” In this rule, FRA would amend the definition of “File, filed and filing” to mean submission of a document under this part on the date when the DOT Docket Clerk or FRA receives it, or if served as that term is defined under 49 CFR 209.5, the date of service. FRA also proposes adding a comma after the word “filed.” Further, FRA proposes amending the definition of “Serve or service,” in the context of serving documents, to have the meaning given in § 209.5. <HD SOURCE="HD2">§ 242.11 Penalties and Consequences for Noncompliance</HD> FRA is proposing to amend paragraph (a) of this section by replacing references to specific penalty amounts with general references to the minimum civil monetary penalty, ordinary maximum civil monetary penalty, and aggravated maximum civil monetary penalty. FRA is proposing to add language to this section referring readers to 49 CFR part 209, appendix A, where FRA specifies statutorily provided civil penalty amounts updated for inflation. FRA is also proposing to amend this section to update the web address from <E T="03">www.fra.dot.gov</E> to <E T="03">https://railroads.dot.gov/.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 242.201 Time Limitations for Certification</HD> Paragraph (a) of this section currently lists four scenarios where a railroad shall not certify or recertify a person as a conductor. Paragraph (a)(3) states railroads cannot make certification decisions based on a knowledge examination that was conducted more than 366 days before the date of the railroad's certification decision. Paragraph (a)(4) is intended to provide an exception to paragraph (a)(3) that allows for railroads to rely on knowledge examinations performed in the 24 months prior to the certification decision <E T="03">if</E> the railroad administers its knowledge testing program at intervals that do not exceed 24 months. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> However, the way this section is written, a railroad that conducts its knowledge testing exams on a two-year cycle would still be prohibited from relying on a knowledge exam performed more than 366 days before the certification decision under paragraph (a)(3). This is a clear drafting error that does not conform with the intent of the regulation and makes paragraph (a)(4) superfluous. Therefore, FRA is proposing to amend paragraph (a)(3) to add “except as provided for in paragraph (a)(4) of this section” at the end of the paragraph to clarify that paragraph (a)(4) provides an exception to the limitation in paragraph (a)(3). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  84 FR 20472, 20485 (May 9, 2019). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 242.207 Certificate Components</HD> As part of the requirement that conductors be certified, railroads must issue certificates to those individuals that they certify. This section details what information must be included in these certificates. Paragraph (a)(3) of this section states that the certificate must identify the person to whom the certificate is being issued. This must include the person's name, employee identification number, the year of birth, and either a physical description or photograph of the person. FRA is proposing to remove the requirement that the certificate include the person's year of birth. In 2023, FRA issued NPRMs proposing the establishment of certification requirements for dispatchers and signal employees. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The Association of American Railroads (AAR) and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) submitted joint comments to both NPRMs requesting that FRA remove the year of birth requirement from dispatcher and signal employee certificates. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> In support of their comment, AAR and ASLRRA noted that a person's birth year provides little to no assistance in confirming a person's identity and there are other ways, such as a physical description or photograph, that better serve this purpose. When FRA issued the final rules establishing dispatcher and signal employee certification, the agency agreed with AAR and ASLRRA's rationale that it was unnecessary to include the year of birth on the certificates, and this requirement was removed from the final rules. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> For similar reasons, FRA is proposing removing the requirement that a person's year of birth be included on their conductor certificate. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  88 FR 35574 (May 31, 2023); 88 FR 35632 (May 31, 2023). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  FRA-2022-0019-0041; FRA-2022-0020-0035. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  89 FR 44766, 44789 (May 21, 2024); 89 FR 44830, 44859 (May 21, 2024). </FTNT> Paragraph (a)(7) of this section states the certificate must be sufficiently small to permit being carried in an ordinary pocket wallet. FRA is proposing amending this paragraph to allow railroads to issue electronic certificates. Section 242.211(b) already provides for railroads to issue temporary replacement certificates electronically, and FRA does not find any safety concerns with extending this allowance to the certificates issued under this section. Electronic certificates would allow for railroads to issue certificates more efficiently while also making it much less likely that a railroad would have to issue a replacement certificate under § 242.211. Lastly, while FRA is not proposing any revisions to paragraph (a)(6) of this section, which requires that a certificate be signed by an individual designated in accordance with paragraph (b) of this section, based on the proposed revision to paragraph (a)(7), it logically follows that FRA would allow for electronic signatures under this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 242.407 Process for Revoking Certification</HD> Many railroads issue their written decisions to revoke a person's certification without findings of fact and a clear application of the regulation. That approach conflicts with an existing requirement in paragraph (c)(11) of this section which requires that each railroad decision must include “the findings of fact as well as the basis therefor, concerning all material issues of fact presented on the record and citations to all applicable railroad rules and practices.” Although paragraph (d) allows a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━