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The Federal Railroad Administration

The Federal Railroad Administration is one of the DOT's 10 departments that deal with intermodal transportation. Its goal is to facilitate the secure and reliable transportation of both people and goods.

FRA field inspectors inspect the railroad track signals, train control and track systems as well operating practices. They also investigate complaints.

Definition

Federal railroads are rail transporters in the United States controlled by the federal government. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is responsible for the creation and enforcement of railway safety regulations, administers railway funding, and studies ways to improve the efficiency of rail transportation systems. The FRA is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation's intermodal transportation division, and its top executives are the Administrator as well as the Deputy Administrator.

The agency supervises all freight and passenger transport that uses the nation's railway network. The agency also coordinates government funding for rail transportation and assists in the rehabilitation of the Northeast Corridor passenger service. Moreover, the agency regulates the management and ownership of all intermodal infrastructures such as tracks, right-of-way equipment, real property and rolling stock, and also provides the overall coordination of federal rail transportation programs.

FRA's responsibilities also include establishing through regulation, and after an opportunity to comment the procedure through which anyone can inform the Secretary of Homeland Security any railroad security issues or deficiencies. The agency also formulates policies, conducts inspections, and reviews compliance with its railroad laws in six technical disciplines, which include track signals, track and train control locomotive power and equipment; operating practices; hazmat and highway-rail grade intersections.

The agency is tasked with the responsibility of making sure the railway transportation system is safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly. This is why the agency requires railroads to provide the safety of their workers and provide adequate training for their employees. In addition, the agency sets and regulates railroad rates to ensure that the public gets an equitable price for their transportation services.

Additionally, the Federal Railroad Administration enacts and enforces regulations to prevent discrimination against railroad employees and also protects whistleblowers from being retaliated against by railroad companies. The agency also establishes an avenue for railroad employees to make complaints about the company's conduct.

The agency's primary mission is to enable the safe, reliable, and efficient movement of goods and people to ensure a secure America today and into the future. The FRA achieves this by controlling safety of railroads, coordinating railroad assistance programs conducting research to help improved railroad safety and national rail transportation policies as well as coordinating and assisting with the development of a rail network and assisting the private sector manage railroads. In the past, railroads dominated the market with little competition. The railroad industry took advantage of its dominant position in the market as a result. This is why Congress established the Interstate Commerce Commission and other regulatory agencies to curb the abuses of railroad monopolies.

Purpose

The federal railroad is a government agency that sets regulations, manages rail funds and researches ways to improve the nation's rail transportation system. It is responsible for both freight and passenger railroads and also manages the nation's railway infrastructure. It is one of 10 agencies of the U.S. Department of Transportation. It is also charged with maintaining and expanding the current rail systems, ensuring the capacity of the rail industry to meet increasing travel and freight demands and providing leadership in national and regional system planning.

The main responsibility of the federal government in the field of rail transportation is safety. The Federal Railroad Administration is responsible for this. It has several divisions which oversee the country's freight and passenger rail operations. The Office of Railroad Safety is the largest with approximately 350 inspectors. It is responsible for conducting safety inspections across six technical disciplines, including track signal, and train control as well as motive and equipment operating procedures, hazmat and highway-rail grade crosses.

FRA has various departments, including the Office of Railroad Policy and Development. This department oversees programs that aim to improve passenger and freight railway transport, including the Northeast Corridor Future. This department is responsible for granting grants given to railways, and collaborates with other agencies to plan the nation's railway requirements.

The FRA also has a responsibility to enforce federal laws related to railroads and their employees. This includes preventing railroads from discriminating against employees and ensuring that all injured railway employees are transported to the nearest hospital for initial aid treatment. Additionally, railroads are prohibited from denying or delaying medical treatment to injured railway employees.

The FRA is the primary regulator of the rail passenger and freight industry, however other agencies manage the economic aspects of rail transportation. The Surface Transportation Board, for example, is in charge of setting rates and governing the economics of the industry. It has regulatory authority on railroad mergers, line-sales, construction, and abandonment. After a period of public consultation the agency is accountable for establishing regulations that allow anyone to report any alleged safety issues with rail.

Functions

Railroads transport people and goods between cities in the developed countries as and remote villages in countries that are less developed. They transport raw materials to processing and manufacturing factories, and the finished products from these facilities to warehouses and stores. Rail is a vital form of transportation for a number of essential commodities like oil, grains, and coal. In 2020, freight rail carried over a quarter of the country's total freight volume [PDFThe PDF file contains.

Federal railroads operate just like any other company with departments for marketing and sales, operations and an executive department. The department for marketing and sales collaborates with potential and current customers to determine the kind of rail services they need and the amount they should cost. The operations department then produces the rail services that satisfy those requirements at the lowest possible cost to earn money for the railroad. The executive department supervises the entire operation, ensuring that each department is functioning efficiently.

The government provides support to railways in a variety of ways including grants, to subsidised rates for shipping government traffic. Congress also provides funds to support and build new stations and tracks. These subsidy funds are often added to the revenue that railroads receive through tickets and freight contracts.

In the United States, the government has the railway for passengers, Amtrak. It is a quasi public for-profit corporation, with the United States Government as a major stockholder.

The Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) main function is to develop and enforce safety regulations for railroads. This includes regulating the mechanical condition of trains and the safety and health of railroad employees. FRA also collects data on security of rail lines to determine trends and areas that require improvement or regulatory attention and to determine trends.

FRA also has other projects that improve the economy and safety of railway transportation in the United States. For instance, the agency is working to eliminate obstacles that hinder railroads in implementing positive train control (PTC). PTC is a safety system that utilizes sensors and computers to stop a train in the event that it is too close to an object or vehicle.

History

In the 1820s and 1830s, the first railroads in America were built, primarily in New England and Mid-Atlantic. Railroads helped speed up industrialization and brought more food to the market in these regions. This made the country more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the railroad industry was experiencing an "Golden Age," during which many new, more efficient rail lines were constructed and passenger travel on train became more popular. This was in large part because of the government's efforts to expand the railroad system. The government, for example, gave homesteaders land grants in order to encourage them to settle the West. Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads also partnered to build the first transcontinental railroad, which allowed travelers to travel from New York City to San Francisco within six days.

In the first half century however, the demand for passenger rail services decreased, and other modes of transportation like planes and automobiles became more popular. Meanwhile, stifling regulation stifled railroads' economic ability to compete. A series of bankruptcies, service cuts, and deferred maintenance were the result. Misguided federal rail regulations also contributed to the decline.

Around 1970, federal government began to loosen the regulatory restrictions on railroads. The Surface Transportation Board was established to oversee economic aspects of the industry such as railroad rates and mergers. The Federal Railroad Administration was also established to set standards for rail safety and is one of 10 agencies of the U.S. Department of Transportation which oversees passenger and freight transportation.

Since then, the infrastructure of the railroads of the United States has seen a lot of investment. The Northeast Corridor, for example has been renovated to accommodate faster, more modern high speed ground transportation (HSGT) trains. Efforts have also been made to develop more efficient freight rail systems. In the future, FRA hopes to continue its collaboration with all transportation agencies in order to ensure safe and reliable railroads. The agency's role is to ensure that the nation's transportation system operates as efficiently as possible.