Okay, The 1990s regulation that introduced Ditch Lights, what is the name of the bill. What I’m looking for is the law passed through Congress; Does anyone know a file number, a name, date passed, or an online copy (not a summery, but like a PDF copy of the regulation.) for example.
Please respond, Thanks. [#dots]
I could be wrong, but I don’t think you’re going to find a “bill” since such a requirement is likely a regulation, not a law.
Bills turn into laws. Regulations come from regulatory bodies (like the FRA).
Larry’s right.
Here’s an excerpt from a post on 01-19-2010 at 10:20 PM by Falcon48 over on the headlight question thread at - http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/167300.aspx?PageIndex=1
“Current FRA rules require headlights and auxiliary lights (ditch lights) to be used on locomotives which operate at a speed over 20 mph over public highway grade crossings, see 49 CFR sec. 229.125.”
Later today I’ll try to post either the link or the text of that rule.
As promised above, here’s the link and a copy of the text version. I suspect it was the 1996 amendments/ revisions - as noted in the brackets at the very end [emphasis added - PDN] -
[45 FR 21109, Mar. 31, 1980, as amended at 61 FR 8887, Mar. 6, 1996; 68
FR 49717, Aug. 19, 2003; 69 FR 12537, Mar. 16, 2004]
that implemented the ‘ditch lights’ requirement.
I don’t believe there was a specific ‘Act of Congress’ that led to this - instead, it was promulgated by the FRA pursuant to its inherent powers to regulate the industry under the ‘‘Railroad Safety Act of 1970’’ (or a similar title), and/ or the ‘‘Railway Safety Appliance Act’’ from early in the 20th century / late 19th century time frame. If you really want to see what statutory authority - ‘law’ or Act or ‘Public Law’, etc. - that the FRA actually relied upon to issue this regulation, you’d have to review the ‘public notice’ of that and related and supporting documentation, which can be found at page 8887 of the Federal Register (‘‘FR’’)of March 6, 1996 as also underlined above.
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2008/octqtr/49cfr229.125.htm
[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 49, Volume 4]
[Revised as of October 1, 2008]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 49CFR229.125]
[Page 452-453]
&
Is this of any help?
“The full House and Senate will consider their Amtrak reauthorization bills next week. The Senate probably will consider S.2608 on August 10; and the House probably will vote on H.R.4250 on August 11. S.2608 is expected to have an amendment by Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (Kans.) requiring ditch lights or strobe lights on all railroad locomotives. Only a few Amtrak locomotives have ditch lights, but all have strobes. This follows a widely publicized grade crossing accident in Kansas.”
Dale -
That’s an interesting piece of research. What year is it from ? What source ?
Thanks for that, and any other info you can provide.
Paul, you can find that quote on NARP - Hotline Archive from August 1992.
Interesting - I may stand corrected, albeit due to a typical knee-jerk reaction law. Does anyone know if the amendment was included? I’m presuming that the appropriation bill itself passed.
Presumably, this refers to what is now section 20143 of the Federal Railroad Safety Act (49 USC 20143), see link for the text:
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/V/A/201/II/20143
As can be seen, this section required FRA to adopt rules requireing additional locomotive lighting by June 30, 1995. Characteristically, FRA missed this deadline (they almost always miss statutory deadlines - sometimes by years), and the rules weren’t published until March, 1996. Those are the rules which (with some minor modifications) now appear in the FRA rules at 49 CFR sec 229.125(d).
Note that the statute allows FRA to exclude categories of trains or rail operations from the auxiliary lighting requirements of its rules. The FRA rule does so in four ways, two of which (the “third” and “fourth” below) may not be immediately obvious from the text.
First, the rule is limited to locos which cross public grade crossings at speeds > 20 mph (intoductory paragraph to 229.125(d)). This excludes locos limited to low speed switching or branch line operations.
Second, the auxiliary light requirements are expressly inapplicable to historic locomontives (defined in sec 229.125(f) as locos built before 12-31-1948 and not used regularly for commuter or interciity passenger service).
Th
So - my question is - what year did it become the standard or that they needed to have them installed by? I remember shooting out in Montana and North Dakota in the early 1990s (likely 93-94) with the arrival of the strobes on the LMX fleet and the BN GP50s. I am guessing that 1996 was the year that they began implementing them fully - but when did the units HAVE to have them by?
Thanks,
Kevin B.
I couldn’t tell you the issue, or even the year, but I remember Trains having a column about thIs. IIRC, the accident in Kansas was 2 or 3 teenage girls going home from a school function. They were driving parallel to the Golden State Route after dark. A train came up behind them and they turned into it’s path at an unsignalled grade crossing. I think that all in the car were killed.
I thought when reading that back then, and still do that ditch lights wouldn’t have changed anything in this case. I don’t think it was that they didn’t see the train, the driver just wasn’t expecting a train.
Jeff
49 USC 20413, 1992. Found at this link.
Ah-ha!! Thank you for this bc it answers a question I had but didn’t get around to asking yet. I was wondering why some tourist roads don’t run with ditch lights; they’re exempt!! It makes sense, bc they are slower and vintage, at least in some cases.
Wow, Paul; I/we knew you were amazing, but now you’ve taken to answering questions before we even ask them!! What’s next, or dare I ask??!! [bow][tup][swg]