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The Federal Railroad Administration

The Federal Railroad Administration is among the 10 agencies of DOT that are responsible for intermodal transportation. Its goal is to facilitate the secure and efficient transportation of people and goods.

FRA field inspectors routinely inspect railroad tracks, signals and train control systems, as well as operating procedures. They also investigate complaints.

Definition

A federal railroad is a rail carrier in the United States that is controlled by the government. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, develops and enforces railway regulations, administers railroad funds, and conducts research to improve the efficiency of rail transportation. The FRA is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation's intermodal transportation division, and its chief executives are the Administrator and the Deputy Administrator.

The agency is responsible for all passenger and freight transportation that utilizes the nation's railway network. The agency also consolidates the funding provided by the federal government for rail transportation and supports the rehabilitation of the Northeast Corridor passenger service. Moreover, the agency regulates the operation and ownership of all intermodal infrastructures such as tracks, right-of-way equipment, real property and rolling stock. It also handles the overall coordination of federal rail transportation programs.

FRA's duties also include establishing, through regulation and after an opportunity to comment an procedure that anyone can report to the Secretary Homeland Security any railroad security problems or accidentinjurylawyers deficiencies. The agency also formulates policies, conducts inspections and reviews the compliance of its railroad laws in six technical disciplines, which include track, signal, and train control; motive power and equipment; operating procedures hazardous materials and highway-rail grade intersections.

The agency is responsible of making sure that the railroad transportation system is operating in a safe, economic, and environmentally friendly manner. This is why the agency requires railroads to provide a safe working environment and provide adequate training for their employees. In addition, the agency sets and enforces railroad rates to ensure that the public gets an equitable price for their transportation services.

Additionally to that, the Federal Railroad Administration enacts and enforces rules to stop discrimination against railroad workers, as well as protects whistleblowers from being retaliated against by railroad carriers. The agency also establishes procedures for railroad employees can file complaints against the company's actions.

The main goal of the FRA is to ensure the safe, reliable and efficient transportation of people and goods for a strong America today and in the future. The FRA accomplishes this through regulating railroad safety, managing programs for assistance to railroads, conducting research to support the improvement of safety for railroads and national rail transportation policies, coordinating and supporting the development of a rail network and assisting the private sector manage railroads. In the past, railroads controlled the market, with very little competition. As a result, the industry frequently abused its position in the market. Therefore, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission and other regulatory agencies to prevent the abuses of railroad monopolies.

Purpose

The federal railroad is a government agency that sets rules, oversees funds for rail and studies ways to improve the nation's rail transport system. It is responsible for both freight and passenger railroads and also manages the nation's railway infrastructure. It is one of ten agencies of the U.S. Department of Transportation. It is also tasked with maintaining and expanding existing railway systems, ensuring capability of the railroad industry to meet growing travel and freight demands and providing leadership in regional and national system planning.

Security is the primary responsibility in the field of rail transportation. The Federal Railroad Administration is responsible for this. It has a number of divisions that supervise the country's passenger and freight railroad operations. The most important of these is the Office of Railroad Safety, with around 350 safety inspectors and is responsible for conducting inspections to determine the compliance with regulations in six technical disciplines including track signal and train control, motive power and equipment, operating procedures, hazmat and highway-rail grade crossings.

FRA has additional departments which include the Office of Railroad Policy and Development. This oversees the programs that are meant to improve passenger and freight rail transportation, such as the Northeast Corridor Future. This department also is responsible for the grants that are made to railways and collaborates with other agencies to plan for the country's rail needs.

The FRA also has a duty to enforce federal laws related to railroads and their workers. This includes preventing railroads to discriminate against employees and ensuring that all injured railway staff are taken to the nearest hospital to receive treatment. The law also prohibits railroads from refusing or delaying medical treatment for injured railway employees.

The FRA is the main regulator of the passenger and freight rail industries, but there are other organizations that oversee the economic aspects of rail transport. Surface Transportation Board is responsible for establishing rates and managing the economics of the industry. It has regulatory authority over mergers in the railroad industry and line sales construction, and abandonment. Other responsibilities include the establishment of regulations after opportunity for public input and participation, where anyone can submit complaints about rail safety violations to the agency.

Functions

Railroads transport people and goods to and from cities in the developed countries as also remote villages in less developed countries. They transport raw materials to processing and manufacturing plants, and finished products from those facilities to warehouses and stores. Rail is an essential mode of transportation for a variety of essential commodities, including grain, oil, and coal. In 2020, freight rail transported more than a quarter of country's total freight volume [PDFThe PDF file contains.

A federal railroad operates as a business just like other businesses with departments for marketing, operations, sales and an executive department. The department for marketing and sales works with potential and existing customers as well as clients to determine the services they need and how much they should cost. The operations department then creates rail services that meet these needs at the cheapest cost to earn money for railroad. The executive department is responsible for the entire operation, ensuring that every department is operating efficiently.

The government offers support to railways in various ways from grants to subsidised rates for shipping government traffic. Congress also provides funds to build stations and tracks. These subsidies are often in addition to the earnings railroads receive from tickets and freight contracts.

Amtrak is owned by the United States government. It is a quasi-public, for-profit corporation with a large stockholder that is the United States government.

The Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) principal task is to formulate and enforce safety regulations for railroads. This includes regulating the mechanical state of trains and the health and safety of railroad employees. FRA also gathers and analyzes data on rail safety in order to identify patterns and areas that might require improvement or more regulatory attention.

FRA also has other projects to improve the safety and economy of railroad transportation in the United States. The agency, for example is working to eliminate obstacles that hinder railroads in adopting positive train control (PTC). PTC is a safety technology that makes use of sensors and computers to stop a train automatically when it is too close to another object or vehicle.

History

In the 1820s and 1830s, the first railroads in America were built, primarily in New England and Mid-Atlantic. Railroads significantly accelerated industrialization in these regions, and also brought more food to the market. This allowed the country to become more independent and less dependent on imports from abroad, which resulted in a solid economic base.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the railroad industry went through a "Golden Age," during which many new trains that were more efficient were built, and passenger travel by train became increasingly popular. The government's efforts in expanding the railroad system was an important reason. For instance the government provided homesteaders land grants to encourage them to move to the West, and the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads worked together to complete the first transcontinental railroad, which enabled travel from New York to San Francisco in just six days.

In the first half century however the demand for rail passenger services declined, and other modes of transportation such as cars and planes became more popular. However, stifling regulations made it difficult for railroads to compete. A series of bankruptcies, service cuts and deferred maintenance was the next step. Misguided federal rail regulations also contributed to the decline.

Around the year 1970, the federal government began to loosen the restrictions on railroads' regulatory requirements. The Surface Transportation Board was established to oversee economic aspects of the industry such as mergers and rates for railroads. The Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees passenger and freight transportation and sets standards for rail safety, was also created.

Since then, the railway infrastructure 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. There are also efforts to develop more efficient systems for freight rail. In the future, FRA hopes to continue its collaboration with all transportation agencies in order to ensure the safety and reliability of railroads. It is the agency's job to ensure that the nation's transportation system operates as efficiently as possible.