Washington — The Federal Railroad Administration has delayed by one year the compliance dates for a final rule concerning emergency escape breathing apparatus on trains carrying hazardous materials.
The rule, published on Jan. 26, 2024, requires railroads to provide atmosphere-supplying emergency escape breathing apparatus to all rail crew members who spend time in the cab of a hazmat train. Workers covered under the rule, which went into effect on March 26, 2024, include train employees, their supervisors, deadheading employees and any other workers who may be in the cab of the locomotive.
Initially, Class I and Class II railroads subject to the rule were required to comply no later than March 26, 2025, while Class III railroads were to comply by Sept. 26, 2025.
In a notice published Aug. 7, FRA says it decided to postpone the compliance dates over “concerns raised in a joint petition for reconsideration, as well as FRA’s own investigation into the feasibility of these dates.”
In March 2024, the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association filed the petition based on limitations of breathing apparatus manufacturers to produce devices that comply with the rule’s requirements.
The breathing apparatus provision resulted from the congressional passage of the Rail Safety and Improvement Act of 2008 and a recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board in the wake of railroad worker deaths in 2004 and 2005. The deaths occurred when the workers inhaled chlorine gas after separate rail incidents.
