The Senate and House bills would ensure safe rail operations through visual track inspection

Visual inspection of railroad track is paramount to the safe passage of trains and the protection of everyone who works, lives or travels on or alongside our nation’s extensive rail network. Millions of people rely on professional track inspectors to ensure that the nearly 150,000-mile railroad systems stretching nationwide meet the strict requirements for safe train travel.

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-International Brotherhood of Teamsters (BMWED-IBT) represented track inspectors posses unrivaled expertise. Every day, our members perform the essential duties required to ensure that freight and passenger trains safely reach their destinations. Their dedication, skill, proficiency, and commitment to our county’s rail system is a trust only worthy to a group with their steadfast abilities and knowledge.

The country largest freight rail carriers, increasingly consolidated in their stranglehold of America’s rail network, are actively attempting to reduce visual track inspections by 50 to 75 percent, shamelessly risking track-caused derailments and community safety in the name of insatiable record profitability.

Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV) recognize that fact. They all understand that any automated track inspection (ATI) technology is nothing more than a tool. ATI can greatly assist in the imperative work track inspectors perform daily, but it cannot replicate -- let alone replace -- the intuition, insight, expertise and instinct that BMWED track inspectors hone through decades of committed professionalism and stewardship of public safety.

“I want to thank Senators Baldwin and Hawley and Congresswoman Titus for their bipartisan support of this vital Secure Tracks Act legislation and commend them for coming together to introduce this important bill in the Senate and House of Representatives respectively,” BMWED President Tony Cardwell said. “Rail safety is not a contentious partisan issue. It defies political squabbling because it is straightforward, common sense.”

Americans trust the railroads to be safe. The men and women of the BMWED take that public confidence sincerely. They carry it with them every single day in their professionalism and commitment to their job. Such devotion cannot be outsourced or replicated by heartless machines. It only lives within the human soul. We all can sleep soundly at night knowing, hopefully soon by federal law, that a professional human track inspector ensured that every inch of our country’s railroad is safe.

The Secure Tracks Act would:

• Require all main line track designated for operation at Class 3 speeds or higher to perform visual track inspections twice each week

• Require any defect or unsafe condition identified to be corrected, protected or removed from service immediately upon detection

• Require qualified inspectors, if they find a deviation, to immediately initiate remedial action and grants the inspector sole authority to authorize any subsequent movements to facilitate repairs on track that is out of service

• Prohibit the Secretary of Transportation from a waiver, exemption, or modification of any safety regulation if the proposed alternative inspection, detection, or monitoring method fails to identify or detect all defect conditions defined or recognized as unsafe under applicable Federal Railroad Administration regulations

• Require that a qualifying Track Geometry Measurement System (TGMS), a type of ATI, operates over various track classifications at specified frequencies-up to four times a year

Take action! Use the links below to quickly contact your Members of Congress and urge support for the Secure Tracks Act in the House (H.R. 7784) and the Senate (S. 3987). Additionally, we encourage you to contact your representatives directly by email, phone, or mail. Let’s make sure our voices are heard—pass the Secure Tracks Act.

ACTION NETWORK: SECURE TRACKS ACT - Senate Bill (H.R. 7784)

ACTION NETWORK: SECURE TRACKS ACT - House Bill (H.R. 7784)

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