If this were a perfect world populated by perfect people, there would be no need for regulations and standards. Being people we will not always make the right choice intentionally or otherwise. While some people seem to make it their career to get around regulations, I think most people try to comply. When the regulations are not appropriate there is almost always a way to change them within the system.
FRA standards are minimums. If a railroad is at every minimim legal standard there is a good chance things won't work well. Nobody should have a program that is set to just meet these standards. Any maintenance standard should exceed the FRA minimums though it is not required by rule. The FRA only requires each railroad to set its standards and then demonstrate that they are following their own standards. Operators come and go. Some are good and some are not. Standards go a long way to ensuring a railroad's survival during the tenure of a not-so-good operator. Too often operators lose sight of the fact that it is the railroad that is important, not the operator. The object of the exercise is to make sure the railroad is here long after we are pushing up daisys.
Regulation is a reality and it is not going away. The FRA is the best outfit to regulate railroads - narrow gage or not. I have seen the results of regulation by totally unqualified entities and it isn't pretty. You could be regulated by the New Mexico Department of Sewers - I've seen stranger. Personally I kind of like another set of qualified eyes looking at our stuff because, since we have been unable to attain perfection, sometimes no matter how hard we try, we overlook things. To say regulation isn't needed just because we haven't killed anybody recently is leaving the barn door open. As small and unnecessary as our industry is in the global scheme of things, if we leave the door open and too many horses get out - we may not get them back.
