New Hours of Service Rules for Passenger Train Crews

The linked press release from the FRA announces new rules governing the hours of service for passenger train crews. It specifically references tourist railroads as being covered, although it gives them some extra time (545 days) to submit their homework. It does not appear to change much for regularly scheduled "day" crews (max 12 hours on duty), but here's an interesting exerpt, "Schedules that include any time on duty between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. must be analyzed using a validated biomathematical model of human performance and fatigue approved by FRA." I wonder if the C&TS has one of them models in a desk drawer. There is a similar requirement for crews working on call. Yada, yada, yada. That could sure put a crimp into our moonlight trains and night photo sessions, etc. I could not find a definition of a passenger train (I may have missed it, there are a lot of words to read), but I assume a photo freight carrying passengers in the caboose, etc., would be considered a passenger train. Unless the "modeling" is cheap and simple, I could easily see tourist railroads simply limiting their operating hours to 4 a.m. to 8 p.m.just to avoid the hassle. Will be interesting how this plays out.

JBWX

New hours of service rules for passenger train crews



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2011 10:31PM by John West.